Ken De Paul,
The XLSW switch and others like it aren't going anywhere for a while. In fact, you will probably see an up-tick in their sales now that they are able to do VoIP. Prior to this time, CLECs, ISPs and even the established telcos have been mounting external kludges on the back- and front- ends of their switches in order to obtain the same effect that the new boards allow.
Your assumption is shared by many, and it is based on the belief that at some point there will be a coming of a true Internet Telephony. Whereas, the current run of VoIP products are geared to IP Telephony, or what is now called voice over Internet protocol, or simply VoIP.
IP Telephony (a.k.a. VoIP) emulates the workings of the existing PSTN, reusing many of its constructs,
whereas...
Internet Telephony is a subset of an end-to-end IP architecture.
Don't look for any biblical proofs on the meanings of these terms. The language is still evolving, lagging the technology sometimes, and consensus on new buzz words is slow. But for the purposes of this discussion, these definitions should suffice.
One is a form of PSTN emulation like your traditional LD carrier service provider offers; the other will be just a plain old Internet service, like e-mail. Of course, future iterations of this "Internet service" will be bolstered with prioritization, QoS schemes, automated policy controls, CD-like quality for those who wish to pay the freight, security and privacy measures (although I'm somewhat doubtful about these last two, for some reason), and lots more.
Therein lies the difference. Your assessment will become true when the latter eventually unfolds, but that wont become mainstream for several to a half dozen or more years.
Most of the movement in this space today, as a measure of commercial momentum, is in the realm of IP Telephony or VoIP, including gateway products, gatekeeprs, accounting software, etc. The latest enhancement by XLSW fits this mold, because it allows a carrier to continue to use many of the administrative and physical plant provisions of existing architectures, namely, that of the PSTN.
Prior to the introduction of this enhancement, XLSW, and others like them, faced stiff barriers to entry in the VoIP market. Now they can play, since these add-ons give them the necessary protocol hooks to negotiate IP clouds.
Regards, Frank Coluccio |
