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Hey Jon. I can possibly shed some light on some of your questions regarding VOIP. First off, to your point regarding the typical 2 wire phone lines (called POTS lines in the industry, for Plain Old Telephone lineS; clever, I know) working fine for decades, you're absolutely correct. However, the key word there is 'decades.' These copper lines deteriorate in ways you couldn't imagine and the industry is coming to a crucial time in Central Office infrastructure, not to mention simply residential infrastructure. Copper wires were never meant to last forever and I've seen some CO's for some big companies (SBC, AT&T, Worldcom) with alot of green copper. Not to be all 'doomsday' about the whole thing, but if you think the quality of VOIP is low, wait a few more years for one of two things to happen with copper. 1) Bell companies do nothing to improve their infrastructure and terrestrial phone service takes a hard nose dive or 2) they replace the majority of their infrastructure, which has been the solution in the past. When they've replaced copper previously it has been at great cost as copper is far from cheap, not to mention the manpower to do the work. And who do you think the bell companies will pass those costs to? Think not only in CO's, but the copper running to your house - possibly underground - too. There's alot of copper to replace and the problem won't just go away. So then the thought becomes: if we're going to replace the infrastructure, lets replace it with better technology. Enter fiber optics. Far cheaper, more efficient and more capable of handling the ever growing need for more bandwidth. We, as arguably one of the most techologically progressive nations in the world, have not yet found a way to max out the potential bandwidth one pair of fiber optic wires can handle. In time, every house is going to have fiber run to it just as they all have copper running to them now. Fiber optic cables will eventually be able to replace all the copper running to your home, including power (the latter most aspect being a ways off, but definitely the likely possibility).

And you're also correct in assuming that phone and internet traffic get mixed at some point. They absolutely do. The very essence of the two of them (as well power) is simply ones and zeros flowing over a copper cable in the form of electrons. So when and where they mix is not important, but rather making sure that when they do mix, there is enough copper avialable to handle it (think resistance - or lack of). Generally speaking, there is enough copper available to support your usage, assuming there isn't too much traffic. DSL is a cruel mistress, though, because the speed of it is completely determined by your proximity to the Central Office, again because of copper. There is a finite distance the signal can traverse and still be within the quality ranges the industry finds "acceptable" before the signal has to be amplified. These exact distances I don't remember off hand, but I want to say that for normal DSL (as opposed to ADSL and other types) its about 2 miles. Again, unless you're sufficiently close to a CO, there are amplifiers that need to be used (usually every other telephone pole (because POTS lines require amplification even more frequently)) and so that adds even more infrastructure that needs to be acquired, deployed and maintained. This also adds uncountable points of possible failure. Again, most of those cons go away in a society more centrally focused on fiber optic infrastructure. And for good measure, bandwidth acquired by means of a cable modem follows the same general guidelines, but coaxial cable can carry a strong signal much further than copper wires, so generally speaking, it is faster. Again, to compare the two is very difficult as it all depends on distances between the end user and the source.

VOIP is very much in its infancy stages and its quality is greatly determined by the network on which you use it. I use it myself and agree there is alot of progress that needs to be made before it reaches the level of technology we expect. It'll come though. Let the change wash over you and be patient. I gaurantee that your children will wonder what copper cables even looked like.

right on Mike, thanks for the help, I sure hope the guys in charge of all this have a good plan for the future

I'm sure they don't.

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