VoIP technologies with the voiploser and friends

Open ID and P2P SIP

voiploser — Wed, 28 Mar 2007 23:54:00 +0000

Friend and fellow IETF'er Alex Mayrhofer from Austria brings to light some very interesting thoughts on OpenID and it's applicability to P2P SIP. P2P SIP is a very intriguing Working Group in IETF, but there's strong debate from many sides about how to implement. Alex have references in his post, as well as some solid points about OpenID's pertinence to P2P SIP.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

iPhone versus the xpPhone

voiploser — Tue, 30 Jan 2007 21:44:00 +0000

Microsoft didn't want to get outdone by Apple with this whole iPhone business - so it announced a product to top the iPhone!

From the article....

* Let you contact the dead
* Swipe illegal music before it even hits the market
* Download porn movies at 4.5 Megabits per second
* UPLOAD porn movies at 4.5 Megabits per second
* Order your pizza for you even when you don't want a pizza

Adam

Man gets the bad-guys from 1000s of miles away

voiploser — Thu, 14 Dec 2006 17:24:00 +0000

Now here's a great example of the power of the Internet and communications.....

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Too funny....

voiploser — Fri, 03 Nov 2006 18:23:00 +0000

I have to share this online comic strip - xkcd.com is just too funny!

Enjoy.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Amazing Hockey Skills

voiploser — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 15:37:00 +0000

The hand-eye coordination of the guys depicted in this video clip from TSN are AMAZING! Enjoy.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

PS - for the record, I have been playing hockey since I was 6 and I am a HUGE fan of the Detroit Red Wings. GO WINGS!

IMS is just an application

voiploser — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 20:26:23 +0000

Simon Torrance - the mind behind the IMS Insider blog - put together the following post on the IMS Insider's blog. IMS Insider: IMS is just an application. The basic premise, as you can tell from the title of the post, is that IMS isn't necessarily a platform, but is just an applicaiton.

From the post... The big IT platform vendors have long offered a suite of both horizontal business applications (e.g. HR, Finance) as well as vertical solutions (e.g. manufacturing). As far as this vendor is concerned, a telco is just another software application that resides in a common application, storage and management framework. Granted, there are some special tweaks and extra capabilities needed, but not a separate supplier ecosystem.

As my source puts it: "IMS isn't a platform. We're the platform, IMS is just an application. And you don't hard wire an application into your network, particularly one as complex and inflexible as IMS."

I couldn't agree more that the future looks bleak for equipment providers, and bright for folks that can cost effectively pump out applications, services and features to a marketplace that is ever-changing. The secret to IMS isn't IMS at all! The "secret sauce" that makes the IMS argument actually lies in the delivery of services. The folks that have consumed the IMS kool-aid would like you to believe that there's value in managing the sessions between the end-user and the application, or "thing of interest". That is a broad statement that only holds true in a small subset of circumstances. It majority, the less complication and "moving parts" between the end-user and application, the better.

IMS also attempts to control the subscriber, the features that are offered to the subscriber, and the communications to/from the subscriber. This is contrary to what the market really wants and needs. It's about the applications, and IP/SIP are the great enablers. NOT IMS.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Searching for VoIP on YouTube

voiploser — Fri, 25 Aug 2006 19:22:00 +0000

Well here's a somewhat interesting YouTube video on VoIP and different ways to address NAT (Network Address Translation (translator according to the video)). It's remedial in it's explanation, but provides a good high-level overview of the NAT problem with VoIP, and some ways to address.

This is not new, but a very good overview on Asterisk from Systm, which is a show from Revision3. Another show from Revision3 that I follow religiously is Diggnation

This hilarious video is a spoof on a girl operating Cisco Call Manager under pressure. Too funny.

This video with Rebtel CEO - Hjalmar Winbladh is quite interesting. Jeff Pulver blogged recently about this company. It's basically international toll abritriage for wireless calls, but it's an ingenius concept leveraging what's out there now.

Adam Uzelac

Skype adding translations services

voiploser — Fri, 12 May 2006 17:10:00 +0000

This has to be one of the more innovative package/service offerings I have seen in awhile. It's a great maneuver by Skype to increase the "stickiness" and applicability to their widely popular international calling.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

IMS "Reality Check"

voiploser — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 13:59:00 +0000

Martin Geddes was asked his opinion on IMS - and what he replies with is very interesting. I have to hand it to him, the man understands the big picture! As for my view on IMS...I am still on the road of discovery.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Thomas Howe Consulting: Getting the Ernie Juices Flowing

voiploser — Fri, 14 Apr 2006 01:01:13 +0000

Thomas Howe Consulting: Getting the Ernie Juices Flowing

It's been awhile since we have heard from Thomas and his Ernie Project. I first discovered Thomas and Ernie back in November. I believe he got some momentum going into the end of the year. It's good to see that he's back at the grindstone!

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Yogi Berra-isms of Telecom

voiploser — Wed, 05 Apr 2006 11:56:00 +0000

Yogi Berra-ism #1 - "It's like deja vu all over again."

There is a fascinating wave of rethinking in the telecom arena that makes me think of Yogi Berra-isms for some reason. Along with my love of history, it is with Yogi’s wisdom and inspiration that I reflect on some of the attention that technologies of the day are getting.

While traveling the blogosphere, I came across the following statistic - 92% of Telco Professionals say 'Strategic Re-Think' a Key Priority. It's not the first time that we, the service provider community, have been trained to believe that the technology or product will solve all our woes. Let's get a historical perspective to prove the point. Let's visit some of the past propaganda and see if there's a common theme.

First it was the rational behind Advanced Intelligent Networks (AIN). The following definition provided by Intel's Telecom Glossary. ' The Advanced Intelligent Network (AIN) is a telephone network architecture that separates service logic from switching equipment, allowing new services to be added without having to redesign switches to support new services. Developed by Bell Communications Research, AIN is recognized as an industry standard in North America.'

"Bell Atlantic Demonstrates AIN Telecom Technology 03/12/92 BALTIMORE, MARYLAND, U.S.A., 1992 MAR 12 (NB) -- Bell Atlantic has demonstrated a technology called Advanced Intelligent Network, which uses computers in modern phone switches to quickly define new services on subscriber lines. The company said this could speed the arrival and cut the development costs of new services by factors of several thousand or more.

"The astonishing leap in network efficiency offered by AIN promises to open a new chapter in telecommunications history in which new services will be available to customers on demand, and exotic technologies such as portable handheld phones will become commonplace," said John Seazholtz, Bell Atlantic vice president of technology."

OK - so just so that we are all on the same page here, AIN was (and still barely is) around as an attempt to separate the service and application invocation logic from the switching fabirc. It's important to keep in mind the state of the technology at the time that this idea was conceived. The switch manufacturers were required to open up somewhere in the range of 10+ million lines of code in order to gain the ability to support a new service. It doesn't take a genius to understand the key to delivering new features and services is in making it simple. In order to make it simple, a concerted effort of unbundling had to be undertaken. Enter AIN. So why didn't it work and get adopted if it was so logical? It so happens that the carriers interested in AIN wouldn’t permit the suppliers of the technology to sell it to other carriers, for competitive reason. It’s not a tactic that brings the best to bare via competition. So the "unbundled golden nugget" remained elusive.

Yogi Berra-ism #2 - "The future ain't what it used to be "

Next in our journey along the lines of telecom technical evolution is the Softswitch. The concept of the softswitch is a continuation of the unbundling theme. A Softswitch is the segregation of the call signaling from the media, with media gateways used for bearer processing, and call-state/processing software on general purpose computers for signaling. Once again the Nirvana of a service and feature creation environment that is decomposed of the call processing element was sought.

Check out this quote from Jan. 24th, 2000

"The primary value of softswitches is they allow service providers to quickly roll out new services without involving switch vendors in the process. That is why softswitches create such promising opportunities for service providers to quickly ramp up their Internet revenues."

Here's a hum-dinger titled - Softswitch Fever: The Bedrock for Next-Gen Services - Technology Information Telecommunications, Jan, 2000 by Doug Allen

" Of all the elements that will make up the new public network, softswitches may be the most important. Softswitches play a crucial role in converged services, end-user control and third-party application integration--attributes that require many changes to the infrastructure."

The advanced intelligent networks (AIN) has been around since the '80s, when proprietary code and lack of vendor support sank it. This time around, softswitches have generated major hype--and some real-world deployment. Level 3 and Global Crossing have announced major IP telephony initiatives using the technology; 22 vendors have announced or introduced softswitch products of one stripe or another; and the International Softswitch Consortium debuted earlier this year to address time-to-market issues for its impressive roster of members."
So I know what you have to be thinking here….with this being the second attempt to reach the ultimate goal for the operator surely with lessons learned, the goal will reached. Well not so fast.

Back in 1999, the International Softswitch Consortium came up with the model for the softswitch architecture. The goal was to distribute the embedded features of existing circuit switches into multiple, discrete elements for the more efficient processing and handling of calls across converged voice and data networks. Beyond the immediate goal of offloading dial-up Internet traffic from circuit switches, the softswitch architecture was envisioned to be the new service creation and delivery engine for voice networks for years to come.

The fundamental problem with centralized softswitch architectures is that too much capability and control is centralized in the Media Gateway Controller, which has to be heavily involved in just about every transaction—from bearer path routing decisions to signaling to feature delivery. Making matters worse, the closed and proprietary platforms offered by most vendors not only create centralized models ill-suited for subscriber service creation and delivery, they also dramatically limit how and when service providers can deliver new features and services to their subscribers.

Enter IMS - I recently got back in touch with my college roommate. I haven't seen nor heard from the guy in over 12 years, and then when surfing the Internet, I stumbled across his name and contact information. He founded a company that specialized in Rebranding. I wasn't familiar with the term, but once he explained it to me, I understood. In the world of Telecom, we have some very creative "rebranders" floating around. See if the quotes below sound familiar.

From Oct 2004 "(for) operators there are benefits of introducing the IMS architecture today. On longer term, IMS enables a secure migration path to an all-IP architecture that will meet end-user demands for new enriched services."

As far as I am concerned, there is are redesign efforts taking place now for 2 main reasons. First we are realizing that the initial generation of packet gateways and the infrastructure that supported them have seen their day in the limelight, and need to be put to pasture. The days of providing a means to facilitate a bridging mechanisms between the Circuit and Packet worlds are dying. The "TDM-hop" that was the defacto standard carriers and enterprises used to pass voice calls is seen as archaic. It's a logical evolution, but an evolution nontheless, and this means the days of the circuit/packet gateway are numbered. The second reason telecom professionals are in the midst of a "redesign" of their infrastructure is due to their ingestion of copious amount of the proverbial "koolaid" being offered by the vendor community in the form of IMS propaganda. I was on a conference call today with a vendor pitching their wares, and the first slide after basic introductions was "We are IMS-ready!" What in tarnation does that even mean?

Yogi Berra-ism #3 - "You can observe a lot by watching"

This post of Richard Stastny's is one that I am going to print off and tape onto my desk.

Richard provides a historical perspective that must be kept in mind when revisiting the architecture of carrier networks:

==================

First some lessons from the past:

* Walled gardens are very successful for some time, but do not last.

* Proprietary solutions are also successful for some time, but they are either replaced by an open standard, or they evolve to a de-facto standard

* Open systems (open source) are lasting and getting more and more successful.

* IETF standards are more successful then others

* End-to-end systems (the Internet) with distributed intelligence are replacing centralized Intelligent Networks

* It is essential that third parties may add functions

* Simplicity wins, also usability.

* The ultimate end-to-end system is P2P

==================

There's much wisdom in these words, and the point I focus on the most is that "Simplicity wins, also usability." I find, as I explore some of the finer points of the IMS framework, that simplicity is not at the forefront of those that conceived the concepts. This is not to say that it's a trivial task to create a signaling plane for real-time sessions on an IP network. It's more the case that owning and using that signaling plane must not be an afterthought, but a focal point from inception.

Yogi Berra-ism #4 - "If the world were perfect, it wouldn't be "

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Confusion around IMS

voiploser — Fri, 31 Mar 2006 20:26:00 +0000

There is a lot of confusion around IMS these days - and you know what? – it’s completely understandable. IMS can mean so many different things to so many different people, and most of the ambiguity stems from the technical angle of view. For instance, from a consumer’s point of view, there’s a popular and growing perception that IMS will lead to the “Walled Garden” approach to services/features and offerings. Brough Turner recently blogged about the evolution of the mobile application business in Asia, and compared it to the US/EU. He points out the in the US/EU, service providers are interested in controlling the subscriber base more and more, with the intention of offering services directly to the subscribers. Increasing the bundle to increase the revenue per subscriber, and make it more difficult and unattractive to part ways. He goes on to compare this “closed” model with the revenue-sharing models of Asia, where partnerships between the service providers and the application providers create an offering that is attractive to the widest audience.

Is IMS applicable in both approaches? I argue it is. I think that Brough might have missed that point. From a service provider’s perspective, it’s the ability of IMS to manage and direct sessions with QOS and securitythat is the most attractive. It shouldn’t matter that the SP, or a partner of the SP ultimately provides the “thing of attraction” – Most important is that the “thing of attraction” meets the expectations of the subscriber.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Camophone - who the heck is calling me now?

voiploser — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:17:00 +0000

Ring-Ring, you get a call and look at the Caller ID - "Who the heck is this calling me?" Now, I don't know about you. but I have done this a number of times, and if I am not familiar with the number, I ususally answer the call. Odd, but I usually reject if I know the person, not when I don't know who the calling party is.

Now comes a hum-dinger - www.camophone.com. These guys permit you to input any caller ID you want. The initial premise was to fool your buddies/friends/enemies into thinking they were getting a call from the police or something. It's one thing to state verbally that you are the police, but when the caller ID substantiates the verbal claim - then it's gospel to some folks.

So what are the implications of something like this. Firstly, it proves that you can't judge a call by it's callerID. Secondly, some systems use calling party information for call routing, or identification purposes. For instance, when I activate my Credit Card, I am required to place the call from my home phone. There's no security in that!! It will be important to note how this issue, and issues like these are addressed by the authorities, if they can. It's only become easier with VoIP, and that can only mean abuse of the technology.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

Reports: AT&T, Bellsouth Near $65B Deal

voiploser — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 19:13:00 +0000

The consolidation continues. This is very expected and interesting only due to the fact that the regulators wouldn't have permitted such a transaction to ever be considered. Nowadays, with so many other telecom options out there, it's allowed to proceed. Nice knowing ya Bell South.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac

not much posting - sorry :(

voiploser — Wed, 01 Mar 2006 00:12:00 +0000

In the UK last week, on jury duty this week, and in Boston next week. Trying to keep head above water.

Adam "voiploser" Uzelac