[*] Comments about VoIP presentation at CIPS

[Bill Reid]

The MTS/Sierra VoIP presentation at the CIPS dinner meeting raised some 
interesting points but on the whole was not very helpful.

The interesting point was that to build a business case for VoIP you have to 
explore the non-traditional voice features like; presence, Web access to caller 
logs, call routing, multimedia, etc.

As John L. pointed out they completely missed the managed VoIP server(i.e. the 
VoIP server is not customer managed or on the customer premises). This would 
have been cheaper than the compared solutions(Centrix, IP Centrix, PBX and IP PBX).

This is an example of the growing split between the "VoIP" vendor solutions and 
VoI (Voice over the Internet). The two sound like the same technology but it is 
sort of like saying apple and oranges are the same since they are both fruit.

The future is VoI not VoIP.

VoI stresses interconnection which is what the PSTN is all about.

Vender VoIP solutions stress issues like QOS, Multimedia apps, proprietory 
protocols (SCCP (skinny) or closed SIP extentions). The assumption is that you 
are calling people running apps and hw from a single vendor.

Of course since the underlying technology is similar it gets confusing but the 
two are really quite different. For example, ENUM and 911 support is very 
important for VoI but basically irrelevent for vendor VoIP.

Skype is such a great application because it plays in the VoI world.  Of course 
its limiting factor is that it is too closed at this time to be considered a 
final solution.

Vendor VoIP will eventually merge with VoI and at that time apples will taste 
like oranges. :-)

In the past there was AOL email, Compuserve email, BBS email, etc. and then 
along came Internet email. They coexisted for a short time with gateways between 
Internet and AOL, Compuserve, etc. But as with Internet email the solution with 
the greatest interconnection(i.e. VoI) will win out.

-- Bill