be reached. This requires that the net- work establish a point of presence (POP) in every local access transport area (LATA). Some level of call quality must be ensured. If this level is lower than traditional telephony, there will be a market as long as price is also lower. An alternate route via a long-distance carrier should be available if the Internet cannot support the call. If the call will be billed at a different rate when it goes over a traditional long-distance carrier, the user will need to be prompted and given a choice as to whether to place the call. Overcoming these hurdles requires a major business investment as well as significant technical expertise. On the business side, establishing a POP in every LATA being served and negotiating with local telephone companies (nationally or internationally) to become a long-distance service provider mean satisfying many regulatory require- ments and negotiating major contracts. It also requires a significant investment in infrastructure. On the technical side, even confirming rapid delivery of packets for time-sensitive services on the Internet is difficult. Guaranteeing rapid delivery, with current technol- ogy, is impossible. It may be possible to measure latency and jitter end to end during call setup and only connect the call if the service works at that moment. However, the Internet has no provisions for latency or jitter management during the call. Traffic bot- Downloaded from Digital Engineering Library @ McGraw-Hill (www.digitalengineeringlibrary.com) Copyright © 2004 The McGraw-Hill Companies. All rights reserved. Any use is subject to the Terms of Use as given at the website. Hybrid Voice-Data Networks Hybrid Voice-Data Networks tlenecks, equipment failures, and denial-of-service attacks would all threaten active calls. If calls are dropped in the middle, people are unlikely to accept the service. 4 In the meantime, the cost of long-distance and international telephone calls contin- ues to drop. In North America, long-distance service is now readi