BREAKTHROUGH: INCREDIBLE VOICE OVER IP
This is from Byron's link a few posts back.
"To repeat, IP Telephony in 1997 is to telecommunications what the IBM PC's
introduction in 1981 was to the computer industry."
I sit shell shocked. I've just spoken to Australia on the Internet. It was crystal clear. No irksome
delays. No crackling.. My first decent Internet phone call (after two years of trying). Two days
earlier I tasted U.S. long distance calls on private, corporate IP networks. The quality was also
superb. Price for the calls was right - FREE.
"IP Telephony may be the biggest computer telephony opportunity ever ."
By Harry Newton, Computer Telephony Magazine
IP Telephony in 1997 is to telecommunications what the IBM PC's introduction in 1981
was to the computer industry.
IP Telephony is huge. It is vastly different to anything we've seen in CT. No one can get their arms I
around it. No one can predict where it's going. We've just skimmed the surface. More in coming
issues.
There are two types of IP Telephony opportunities: First, ways for corporations to save money and
love their customers better; and second, ways for entrepreneurs to get into the act. First, the
corporate ways:
Any corporation with an internal (i.e. managed) IP data network can save huge amounts of
money by stuffing voice onto the network.
Corporations with offices overseas will hook IP-to-PSTN gateways to their data networks and
save vast ironies by turning their international calls into local calls.
Fax swims easily and flawlessly over both Internet and private IF networks. For corporations
sending faxes overseas, the savings will be gigantic.
Any corporation with a call center and a Web site already has a "call me" button. But today that
means a call back on a second line. Soon they'll talk to their customers directly Via the Web. We'll
close sales faster.
IP Telephony equipment already shows a fewer than six months pay-back in toll-saving installations.
Prices are about to plummet. We'll see installations with 30-day pay-backs within six months.
There's more competitive action here than I've seen in 30 years of competitive telecom. (That's how
long I've writing about telecom.)
Second, the entrepreneurs:
Internet, Regional and National Service Providers (ISPs, RSPs and NSPs) can piggyback voice
and fax onto their IP networks and form global consortia. The approach: "You put gateways in your
Korean cities. I'll put gateways in my U.S. cities. Our customers will be able to dial between Korea
and the U.S. for the price of a local call (or whatever we charge)."
I hear under 15 cents a minute international calling - half what companies pay from today's circuit-
switched IXC& (AT&T, MCI, Sprint, etc.)
Inter-Tel, which sells a wonderful IP-to-PSTN Telephony gateway powered by NMS boards, is
installing gateways all over the world. It believes it will sell more boxes if the global. IP Telephony
infrastructure is in place.
Computer network resellers, systems integrators, Novell dealers, Microsoft Solution Providers
and telephone interconnect. dealers will find new work selling, installing and integrating IF Telephony
equipment into corporate data networks.
To repeat, IP Telephony in 1997 is to telecommunications what the IBM PC's introduction
in 1981 was to the computer industry.
It rewrites the rules. Its ultimate appeal lies not in immense dollar savings. Those will drive IP
Telephony for years. What's most exciting is that IP Telephony empowers the user.
For 120 years, progress in telecom has been "driven" by glacial behemoths. Make the network
stupid. Move the innovation to the desktop. Everyone now becomes a telco. Your PC is the
intelligent network. That means an explosion on innovation. Things we can't dream of today. Ideas
someone will create three years out.
Bingo non-stop, mind-bending innovation in telecom. Browsers may be our new phones. Netscape
versus Internet Explorer? You ain't seen nothing yet. The telephone industry dwarfs the computer
industry There's major motivation here.
The concept of IP Telephony is I deceptively simple: Put all your phone calls into packets. Stuff two
things into each packet: First, the conversation. Second, instructions about where to send it and what
to do with the conversation.
Those instructions might just be the address. Or they may be more complex: "if Joe isn't there, try
this other number." Or "if his phone is busy, hold the call, send him a message saying it's Harry
calling and wait on his instructions."
With IP Telephony, the network transmits raw bits. The world becomes a gigantic LAN. Everyone
is on the Net all the time. Everyone has a "smart" phone, powered by software they buy.
Everyone thus defines their phone to be what they want - just as they define their PC today to be
what they want. And everyone, through the intelligence at die "phone" defines the IP Telephony
services they want to use. Your IP address is your one-number, follow-me phone number.
I saw a man log onto the Internet via our LAN and receive a phone call transferred by the auto
attendant on his remote PBX. It rang the phone on his .FC during our meeting at our New York
City offices. The caller had no idea where he was, except that he was available. The caller could see
that in a "busy lamp field," updated by messages from Internet log-ins. The FBX was in Texas.
My "phone" might be a powerful $3,000 PC, with software to handle several simultaneous voice
calls, one continuous high-speed email feed, one continuous news feed from the Wall Street Journal,
one continuous stock feed and maybe one video feed in the background for the movie I want to
watch that evening.
Your "phone" might be a $200 phone that plugs into 10Base-T and sports a BIOS that can be
improved with downloads. "With such a phone, I could get my high quality FM audio I've always
wanted," says the music-loving Brough Turner, Chief Technology Officer, Natural MicroSystems.
Says Brough, "What we at NMS are pushing now are gateways to the legacy phone system. There
are a billion phones out there. They're not going away. But within five years, these IP telephones
with neat displays will cost $10 more to make than today's very dumb animals.
"Within two years, most PCs wilt come with full-duplex sound cards optimized for voice. Today's
cheap multimedia PC cards are half-duplex and contribute materially to the delays you hear today on
Internet phone calls," says Brough.
Classic definition: Computer telephony is the adding of computer intelligence to the making,
receiving, and managing of telephone calls.
With IP Telephony, the telephone user finally has the intelligence he has craved for so long.
IP Telephony is the purest manifestation of this classic definition.
This is awesome. |
