MarkC, thx x 2 this is nice>>>>
VOIP: What, me worry?
Technological limitations fast becoming a non-issue for Internet telephony.
By David Kopf
voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) naysayers, you've got about a year before
you'll have to find another technology to knock. Internet telephony is fast becoming
a solution worthy of the public network; moreover, customers seem to want it and,
increasingly, so do carriers.
The VOIP market is maturing as subscribers-rom residential users to telecom
managers at large enterprises-realize the cost benefits of Internet telephony as well
as the range in applications. What's more, IP is what customers want. In a Gartner
Group Inc. (Stamford, Conn.) study on protocol distribution in wide area networks
(Figure 1), IP is skyrocketing and set to dominate other protocols by the turn of
the millennium. Consumer Internet telephony users will give providers of
residential VOIP services with $1 billion by 2002, according to Forrester Research
Inc. (Cambridge, Mass.). Also, voice and fax over the Internet and corporate IP
networks will draw 4% of standard telco revenues away from the public switched
telephone network (PSTN), and will save business users $1 billion, Forrester says.
Where many facilities-based carriers once viewed VOIP with suspicion, they now
are studying how Internet telephony may benefit their voice business.
The big sticking point for VOIP has been the technology. Despite heavy market
interest, VOIP is still quite a new technology and until late hasn't been ready for
prime time. At its baby-steps stage, VOIP was limited to PC-to-PC transmissions
facilitated by client software but quickly grew to real service with the advent of
gateway-based VOIP. Instead of calling PCs, users now can dial to a gateway
connected to the Internet. That gateway, via an interactive voice response (IVR)
interface, prompts users to enter their billing information and the number they
want to reach. That first gateway connects across the 'Net to the gateway closest to
the dialed number, and establishes a VOIP connection via H.323 protocol (the de
facto VOIP standard). The second gateway outdials to the recipient's number and
the call is established.
Gateway-based VOIP sounds nifty but, upon closer inspection, raises many
questions: Should Internet telephony service providers (ITSPs) rely on a public,
shared, packet network like the Internet? Is a private backbone better? Will users
stand for multistage dialing? If so, for how long? What about interworking the
PSTN-especially intelligent network (IN) applications such as local number
portability (LNP)? How do services like centrex take advantage of VOIP? The list
grows longer as the technology progresses.
However, that checklist is quickly being answered as VOIP technology accelerates at
a pace matched only by service provider interest. Now the main problem for ITSPs
is quickly changing from "Where's the technology?" to "Which approach should I
take?"
SERVICE OPPORTUNITIES FOR ALL
Internet telephony is not the "carrier killer" that industry watchers initially pegged
it to be. Although the service provides an alternative to standard PSTN voice
telephony, there's no reason traditional telcos can't offer it, and they are.
Without doubt, VOIP is not limited to the simple tariff arbitrage application that
dominates most of the services offered by ITSPs. Instead of just a cheap call from
Los Angeles to Hong Kong, or New York to London, Internet telephony represents
to established carriers a whole range of services that can span a carrier's entire
business. Shawn Wiora, program manager for enhanced IP services at GTE Corp.
(Stamford, Conn.) says his company is placing "a particular emphasis on IP
telephony," especially when it comes to bundling VOIP with GTE's current
services. For GTE, VOIP would represent a companywide effort.
Besides the obvious opportunities for VOIP at GTE's ISP arm, GTE
Internetworking (Cambridge, Mass.), GTE could find some VOIP services for its
online directory service, GTE Superpages, which is produced by GTE New Media
Services Inc. (Dallas/Fort Worth). The wireless angle for some sort of mobile,
IP-based device could find a home at GTE Wireless (Atlanta), and IP telephony
applications up in the wild blue yonder in regard to GTE Airfone (Oakbrook, Ill.),
which provides in-flight communications, Wiora says.
Obviously, GTE Long Distance, with 2 million customers, could find many ways to
offer up VOIP services to its users. "Voice over IP presents a tremendous
opportunity to these folks," Wiora says.
For GTE, bundling VOIP into other services may be the name of the game. Wiora
says the provider is studying four key bundling approaches:
Standard voice services. GTE's emphasis is in this arena, particularly in long
distance. "For GTE, we see a long-term play," he says.
Fax. Fax over IP (FOIP) does not pose the technological challenges that
real-time VOIP does, broadcasting faxes over the 'Net could be an appealing
GTE service to business users, particularly the small office/home office
(SOHO) market.
Messaging. While trying to maintain a live voice conversation over a packet
network might be touchy, store-and-forward communications such as IP
voice messaging could provide a more flexible voice mail service for GTE.
Moreover, GTE could offer bells and whistles like unified messaging, which
lets customers manage their voice, e-mail and fax messages via a PC-based
interface.
New access devices. This could appeal to GTE Wireless customers. "You
could have an IP phone that supports voice, but also e-mail," Wiora says.
"You could respond by voice to an e-mail with a single push of a button.
You don't need a clunky keyboard."
Will all these opportunities, there are still some VOIP issues that are shaking out
and there are questions carriers need to answer in planning their VOIP networks
and services.
PSTN COMPATIBILITY
One of the biggest questions surrounding VOIP services has been interworking and
interoperability with the PSTN. Gateway-based VOIP is one things, but to attract
the numbers that would make residential Internet telephony service possible, ITSPs
need to to seamlessly with the SS7 network, and they need to be able to work with
tricky IN applications and services.
One thing that has pushed interworking between the PSTN and the Internet has been
increased data traffic on voice switches ("The post-switch, SS7 solution," July 1).
THIS ALL SO GOOD AND EXACTLY WHAT DGIV IS GOING TO DO! I MEAN STATE OF THE ART...
MARK thx again, i knew but, like it when it is in print...i get alot from asking the VOIP thread TELCO GURU's... specifically,
Frank Collucio
Bellcore (Morristown, N.J.) and other vendors have developed methods to offload
dial-up Internet traffic out of the voice matrix to decongest the PSTN using SS7 and
IN capabilities; but in so doing, they also have provided inspiration to vendors and
other technology developers seeking to route voice to the data network.
An important step in that direction was Hewlett Packard Co.'s (Palo Alto, Calif.)
June announcement that its OpenCall network platform, a mainstay voice
networking tool, would now provide SS7/ISUP as well as IP signaling (see
"Technology puzzles no more"). One of the first vendors to integrate this
capability into one of its systems was Ascend Communications Inc. (Alameda,
Calif.), which debuted its Ascend Signaling Gateway (ASG) system, which provides
a platform for not just offloading 'Net congestion from the PSTN, but geared for
provisioning straight forward VOIP services (Figure 2), as well as providing
more complex, IN-based apps such as alternate call routing to specific networks.
"In the typical telephone network the SS7 does a bearer channel setup through the
level four, level five switches and connects a call from point A to point B," says
Ted Butch, director of access product marketing for Ascend. With the ASG, "The
SS7 communicates with the Ascend Signaling Gateway and is able to set up a bearer
channel through the data network. So now you're able to set up a bearer channel
through the PSTN or through the data network."
Is everyone getting this? I sure hope so that is why the NMSS/NORTEL release was so Important yet, many still may not get it...it's more than a winner...it's da BOMB...DGIV, that is...
At the data connection side, the ASG provides voice over data profiles so that a
VOIP transmission could be tunneled through a VPN into a private IP backbone or
other network. As Ascend boils more IN functionality into the ASG (Q1-Q2 1999),
the system will be able to offer call routing applications that will let carriers apply
service rules to route traffic to specific networks (Figure 3).
However, PSTN interworking isn't the end-all, be-all solution to VOIP woes.
Internet telephony will most likely advance from both directions: developing better
interoperability between VOIP and the PSTN, but also moving more of PSTN's
functionality to a packet data environment, says Al Bender, vice president and
general manager of Nortel's (Brampton, Ontario) VOIP solutions for service
providers.
Nortel announced in late June its IPConnect portfolio of VOIP products, which is
geared to give service providers a carrier-class Internet telephony platform using
preexisting Nortel DMS, MMCS and CVX 1800 switches.
"The technologies we've been using have been trying to push data down the voice
network," Bender says. "Now that data has exceeded voice traffic on the PSTN, the
question is now, `How can we push voice down the data network?'"
So, Internet telephony's deployment issues aren't limited to VOIP-SS7
interworking, but include challenges such as developing a complete set of IP-based
call services. Bender says the goal is to export to IP networks even the lowliest of
voice services, such as "This number is no longer in service" announcements, all the
way to linking LNP and other advanced IN (AIN) functions to an IP environment.
PSTN interconnection is really a question of perspective, according to Bender. It all
depends on which side of the network you're starting on. Facilities mean a lot to
carriers that have built them, but new players may simply want the applications that
SS7 and IN/AIN provide without much care about which protocols/technologies are
really delivering them.
EXACTLY why DGIV, WILL WIN WIN WIN...imho....
"The ILECs, etc. will still want to use their facilities, but ITSPs won't have a
mindset of pre-existing equipment," he says. "They don't want to buy AIN; they
want 800 services or caller ID. If you had a clean sheet of paper and asked would
we do it differently, the answer probably would be yes. As those two collide, it will
be interesting to watch."
And that's really what users want; they don't care about what technology their voice
services are based on, they just want the services, Bender says. That requirement
can scale from caller ID to 911 all the way up to centrex, he adds. Also, VOIP
needs to be as easy as standard PSTN voice services-or it should make those
services easier. Where IPConnect is concerned, it can provide fundamental voice
services, such as letting users reach 911 without having to dial other numbers, and
can provide potentially international centrex services that extend far beyond the
physical, geographic limits of PSTN-based centrex.
QUALITY IS THE KEY
Another key component to Internet telephony success is quality. VOIP quality has
grown by leaps and bounds, especially if you consider that the ham radio-like
quality of early PC-to-PC Internet telephony marked the technology's consumer
birth only two or three years ago. But widespread, business and residential,
phone-to-phone VOIP is a different matter. The quality has to be there.
For GTE this has meant heavy investment into research and development,
partnering with the right companies and building a backbone that can provide
PSTN/near-PSTN voice quality for Internet telephony. Quality of service (QoS), in
terms of network classes of service (like those associated with asynchronous
transfer mode) and in terms of the user's subjective experience, has to be there for
VOIP to succeed, Wiora says.
"We need to make sure that connection meets customers' expectations from end to
end," he adds.
To manage those expectations, carriers must manage their network latency, because
delays in voice conversations just won't work. A jitter here, a pause there and users
will hang up their IP phones. The whole network-from the caller to the
recipient-needs to be taken under consideration. What carriers can't control-such
as the public Internet, or a bad end-user device-will need some over-compensation
on the service provider's part.
"You need to build a budget for latency for each component in the connection,"
Wiora says. "Then work within that budget to deliver service."
Moreover, that budget has to scale. Of all the gateway-based Internet telephony
network services being offered, the idea of scaling to millions of users may not
scale to such an architecture. "Our approach is to go to market with a network that
understands what it takes to provide quality," Wiora says. "You've got to
understand how the 10 millionth customer will impact the network."
That means management. The gateway systems that were developed were mostly
developed for the corporate market. To handle the hundreds of millions of users
that carrier-class VOIP would mean, ITSPs have to be able to manage to that scale
and ensure that they are meeting the quality levels they offer. To do that Delta
Three developed its own tools in-house, says Elie Wurtman, president and CEO of
ITSP Delta Three Inc. (New York).
That management grows more complex as ITSPs interconnect networks. The range
in VOIP network approaches (from compression to service tiers and so on) affect
Internet telephony interconnection. This again provides ITSPs with a tough
management challenge, Wurtman says.
CHANGING LANDSCAPE
As ITSPs learn to deal with scaling to meet a mushrooming market, one thing is
certain for Internet telephony; the business of providing it won't stay the same. The
current VOIP landscape as a means of international tariff arbitrage can't last
forever. While cheap long distance is attractive, VOIP will be a true success once it
reaches (insert-GLOBAL)widescale deployment with a range of services to rival that of the PSTN.
Will that happen? "I really do believe IP telephones will be ubiquitous," Bender
says.
Ubiquity has its price, though. Widescale VOIP services means that the regulatory
climate will most likely change. While this won't be a big change for service
providers like GTE, which already deal the FCC and state public utility
commissions (PUCs) on a regular basis, smaller alternative providers, such as
ITSPs will have to dance to a new tune. Currently, in the United States, the FCC
and PUCs pretty much leave ITSPs alone.
Internet telephony providers don't pay large access fees to connect with other
networks fees like standard telcos do, and their cost to provide service is
significantly lower. (Bender estimates a call without access fees costs about one cent
to provide.) But if Internet telephony service usage grows large enough, such
growth might warrant regulatory bodies to reconsider hands-off practices.
the latter is a given but, first to International market get's the lions share particularily in those countries where no other major telco's can go...
Moreover, if ITSPs eventually must behave like regular telcos, the whole question
of access agreements must be addressed, Wiora says. To operate in the telecom
space, ITSPs will have to build out their customer care systems and network
management and operations support systems (OSS) so that they interconnect and
interoperate with other carrier-traditional telcos or otherwise-so that they can
share network information, report faults and exchange customers in a reasonable
fashion.
Does this mean that ITSPs will have to incorporate electronic bonding-the
complex and costly methodology by which the FCC and the 1996 Telecom Act have
mandated that wireline carriers exchange network and customer information? That
question, as well as the issue of access fees, will most likely go unanswered, as
regulators have yet to assess the potential market implications of Internet telephony.
Eventually, VOIP regulation will be handed down, Bender says.
"What is uncertain is where the decision-making is taking place," Wiora says. "Who
has the final say-so."
July 15, 1998 table of contents
Wow, thanks again, MarkC, for the lead In...
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