Carriers adopt hybrid VOIP approach - IT managers get cost savings of VOIP without the risks
September 22, 1998
InfoWorld via NewsEdge Corporation : Many
telecommunications managers do not yet see
phone calls via the Internet as a corporate
option because they feel the technology is
too immature. But companies can still take
advantage of the cost savings that the
technology brings without making a
wholesale jump to Internet telephony.
How? Although large telecommunications
carriers and ISPs are slow to roll out Internet
telephony services, smaller carriers, prepaid
calling card companies, and dial-back
companies, such as IDT and USA Global Link,
are offering services running on combination
switched-circuit and IP networks that are
linked via gateways.
This hybrid approach enables carriers to
route calls via the Internet rather than
traditional lines on some high-priced
international circuits such as, say, Boston to
Pakistan. In turn, the carriers can provide full
coverage while charging less for their
services than traditional carriers. For
instance, Internet telephony international
services from the United States offer 30
percent to 70 percent savings compared with
regular tariffs, depending on the country
being called, according to Forrester
Research, in Cambridge, Mass.
Better yet, obtaining the savings does not
require any special effort by users, according
to Tom Evslin, CEO of Internet Telephony
Exchange Carrier, an IP telephony
wholesaler, in Princeton, N.J.
"[An IP link] is just a route choice for
telecom resellers. There doesn't need to be
tremendous consumer awareness or buy-in,"
says Evslin, who formerly was president of
AT&T WorldNet Service.
Already popular in the consumer space,
these services are increasingly being used by
business travelers.
"As carriers get beyond pilot trials and in
serious deployments, we expect 200 million
minutes in IP telephony calls," says Hilary
Mine, an analyst at Probe Research, in Cedar
Knolls, N.J.
The services work when a user places a call
on a standard telephone. The call is routed
by prepaid calling card companies, dial-back
companies, and other resellers to gateways
that convert the calls from circuit-switched
form to IP and route them via the Internet.
The reverse process happens on the other
end.
Some obstacles hinder growth in this sector.
Primarily, different vendors' IP telephony
gateways do not interoperate, are not
scalable, and do not support the Signaling
System 7 (SS7) protocol used in the public
switched telephone network. These
shortcomings make it more difficult for
service providers to create the networks
they need to provide worldwide coverage.
But gateway vendors are taking steps to
alleviate the problems. Last week, two of the
largest gateway vendors, Lucent
Technologies and VocalTec, used the Fall '98
Voice on the Net conference in Washington
to demonstrate interoperability between their
telephony gateways using an implementation
of the H.323 standard. To encourage other
gateway vendors to follow suit, Lucent and
VocalTec said they will submit their
interoperability specifications to standards
bodies.
Meanwhile, Evslin, whose company uses
Lucent and VocalTec and helped bring them
together, believes gateway vendors will
support SS7 in IP telephony gateways soon.
Still, hybrid Internet and switched service is
far from the last word in Internet telephony.
Rather, it is a phase that will last until the
Internet can compete with switched
networks on reliability and quality.
Eventually, IP networks will be stable enough
to provide end-to-end service, and will be
used to provide new services such as a
phone number that does not change when a
customer moves.
But analysts agree these services will take a
while to develop.
"The complexity of [voice over IP] has
become a reality, but widespread adoption of
IP voice technology will take several years,"
says Dan Taylor, an analyst at the Aberdeen
Group, in Boston.
Lynda Radosevich and Laura Kujubu cover
telecommunications for InfoWorld.
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