Originally Posted by
sbm12
And while traffic priority/QoS is important it is also important to know that there really is no such thing on the internet. On a private network you can configure the infrastructure to prioritize the voice traffic and drop other packets if the lines get full. On the internet you have zero control of such things and you are stuck with a best-effort solution. That means that you are, for the most part, just going to have to deal with whatever you get in quality.
You are partly right, but the prioritization of traffic at the edge (ie: on the router) makes a HUGE difference to performance. I have worked with many large (Global 2000) enterprises who are happily running VoIP in places like Africa over the Internet with the only prioritization being done on the edge router. The difference between it turned on and off is incredible.
So saying you have zero control over the traffic being dropped is only partially correct - on the network side, this is correct. But for the most part, the order of traffic you send out on a network link is the same as what you will receive at the far end, even over the Internet. Don't forget that the Internet backbones that providers operate are massively bigger than their private networks, so there is plenty of bandwidth to go around.