VoIP Peering

These topics are on a lot of minds today and that is a great thing for all of us in this industry. I am going to be moderating/leading two sessions at the IT EXPO West 2009 in LA.

Spread the word! I hope to see everyone there!

Tuesday, September 1: 12:45 - 1:30 pm
Dark Fiber & U.S. Stimulus - How New Fiber Drives
Broadband VoIP

Over the next two to five years broadband speeds and
penetration will increase giving VoIP service providers and
equipment vendors more opportunities than ever before.
This session will connect the dots between the Broadband
Stimulus, fiber deployment and the VoIP applications that
will grow from it. The moderator will give an overview of
the current status of the ARRA BTOP. The panel will discuss
the benefits of wide-scale broadband deployment and how
that will positively impact the VoIP industry.

Tuesday, September 1: 1:45 - 2:30 pm
Fiber & Wireless Backhaul - Two Technologies
That Actually Feed Each Other

Since the invention and commercialization of both fiber and
wireless transport there has been a perception of
competition between the two. Vendors positioned their
products and services as a "one, or the other" choice. Very
recently it has become very apparent to the mainstream
buyer that fiber and wireless actually complement each
other. There is probably no better example of this than with
4G wireless deployment and backhaul needs of wireless
data from cell towers. This session will provide an overview
of the current state of wireless backhaul over fiber, the
benefits, where it is and is not happening, and why.

From Internet Telephony to Voice over Internet Protocol there was a shift. It was from voice over the public Internet to voice over the protocol itself but using a private network, or transport layer circuit rather than the public Internet. This distinction is subtle, but critically important.

Recently there has been much hype about cloud computing. The "cloud" of course is the Internet. This term has its roots in frame relay and other data protocols that preceeded the Internet. Frame Clouds were places where virtual circuits were created so as to avoid the high cost of point to point circuits. At the transport layer it made good sense and saved dollars, but lacked the dynamic features that the Internet provided. Security was sacrificed in return for usability and profit.

Today in the world of could computing there are basically depots where one can go in and out and pick up, or use any available IP application on a per-use basis. This adds to the convenience factor of the public Internet and further compounds the economoic benefits as more applications are brought online. A recent and very logical one is Voice applications.

Ifbyphone is a Cloud Telephony provider that offers in simple terms voice applications that can be accessed over the Internet. So, for a service provider looking to offer their customers voice features they need not build it on their own. They can just incorporate ifbyphone in to their own service offering and pay as they use it.

The key is the service is that it can be accessed. This is accomplished by "SIP Trunking" which is a very basic form of VoIP Peering. The interesting dimension with cloud telephony is that while it it essentially enabled by VoIP Peering it also provides for an alternate destination for the session rather than a specific endpoint for the purposes of a full-duplex call. It is possible that this is a step in the direction of an IP version of the legacy TDM Audiotext. Aside from features such as voicemail, IVR and call tracking it is possible to create information-based services that can be pay-pay-use.

Things such as press 1 for weather (sponsored by the Weather Channel), 2 for dining (sponsored by Zagats), etc could easily be SIP trunk destinations within this new VoIP cloud world. There are many, if not endless revenue generating applications that can be created.

Cloud telephony is a natural eveolution. It does not solve for the security issues related to the public Internet and any data that traverses it, but the double yellow lines on the road do not do much to keep someone from crossing the line either. Nevertheless, the roads and the Internet are essential for the dynamic nature of commerce.

For those that missed the article I am blogging about it. I can get the stats from the blog on how many views I get, but do not get the same data from the magazine articles. Not that it diminishes the value of print or anything, but the message needs to get out.

As many sit and wait for the BTOP, A.K.A. US Broadband Stimulus a perfect opportunity passes by - every passing TDM minute. There is no longer an excuse. Whether you are a carrier, or enterprise Voice Over Internet Protocol is it!

From the article:

The truth is that VoIP works and that if your business does not switch to it you are certain to continue spending too much. In today's economy that may mean the difference between staying in business and not. For those fearful about security, know this: you are not trading the PSTN for the Internet. You are exchanging TDM for IP. From that simple reality comes 90 percent of the savings.

The upcoming IT Expo West in LA, CA September 1-3 will undoubtedly be stacked with several valuable sessions as always. I will be covering a couple of known subjects around a timely phenomenon - The Broadband Stimulus. The focus will be on the Broadband Stimulus and how it will potentially impact broadband VoIP deployment and use as well as investment in fiber and wireless technologies and their inevitable union.

I hope to see you there!

9/1/2009, 12:45-1:30pm
Track: Service Provider
"Dark Fiber & U.S. Stimulus - How New Fiber Drives Broadband VoIP" (SP-04)
Over the next two to five years broadband speeds and penetration will increase giving VoIP service providers and equipment vendors more opportunities than ever before. This session will connect the dots between the Broadband Stimulus, fiber deployment and the VoIP applications that will grow from it. The moderator will give an overview of the current status of the ARRA BTOP. The panel will discuss the benefits of wide-scale broadband deployment and how that will positively impact the VoIP industry.

9/1/2009, 1:45-2:30pm
Track: Service Provider
"Fiber & Wireless Backhaul - Two Technologies That Actually Feed Each Other" (SP-05)
Since the invention and commercialization of both fiber and wireless transport there has been a perception of competition between the two. Vendors positioned their products and services as a "one, or the other" choice. Very recently it has become very apparent to the mainstream buyer that fiber and wireless actually complement each other. There is probably no better example of this than with 4G wireless deployment and backhaul needs of wireless data from cell towers. This session will provide an overview of the current state of wireless backhaul over fiber, the benefits, where it is and is not happening, and why.

Do not even think for one second that VoIP Peering, or any of its various dimensions, are napping - and XConnect is the proof. In their latest announcement XConnect has laid down the VoIP Peering Law. For a quick recap here are the highlights...

1. The Global Alliance Community Web portal - a site containing the tools for finding peering partners based on their location, business type and service features supported, and creating and controlling all aspects of their peering policy on a peer-by-peer basis. The portal also offers access to real-time traffic statistics, market intelligence, forums, member messaging and networking tools.

2. Free Alliance - an option that allows service providers to exchange voice and multimedia traffic settlement-free, thereby extending the benefits of on-net calling to millions of IP end users worldwide.

3. Alliance In and Out

In - an option for Global Alliance members to earn revenue by receiving inbound traffic from the PSTN into their networks, based on XConnect's ENUM registry.

Out - an option that enables Global Alliance members to terminate their outbound traffic via XConnect, based on a standard, per-minute billing model.

4. Web 2.0 and Voice over Instant Messaging (VoIM) Peering - an option for service providers to extend subscribers' free-call reach by peering with IM communities, such as Google Talk™.

These are all killer apps for VoIP Peering. I myself am partial to the Free Alliance. Not that I have anything against making money, or companies that do, but it shows that there is a model for making making money by giving something away for "free". Ha! For those that do not "get it" - give away the razor and sell the blades.

Not only is there a huge future in VoIP Peering - the future IS VoIP Peering. Everyone, including call center businesses and every company that uses a call center for sales, support, etc - which is a lot - needs to understand the 4 points above. Every one of them can help reduce costs and increase revenues and bottom line margins.

Rock On XConnect and VoIP Peering! Soon it will be a given and everyone will get it.

I recently had the chance to chat with Doug Ranalli, Founder and Chief Strategy Officer of NetNumber, the world's leading provider of converged, next-generation, portability-corrected ENUM, SIP, SS7/C7 and SIGTRAN addressing and routing technology to the global communications industry about their recent annoucement with XConnect.

Although we had a very stimulating conversation that included perspectives on the US Broadband Stimulus which is sure to ultimately help VoIP deployment and adoption in many ways Doug's quote from the release basically sums up the value of the XConnect relationship and how it will stimulate VoIP Peering...

"Fixed-line carriers and mobile operators that have deployed the NetNumber TITAN server can now query the XConnect registry via SIP and ENUM methodologies to identify routing details for millions of telephone numbers operated by service providers globally," said Douglas Ranalli, NetNumber's founder and chief strategy officer. "Future Carrier-ENUM and number-portability implementations will depend on the smooth integration of routing data from multiple registry providers, and this certification moves us in that direction."

This announcement received a decent amount of media attention from sources other than myself - which is great! It shows that the VoIP Peering movement is in fact just that - moving. From the looks of it the VoIP Peering world is moving in the right direction too.

The basic building blocks must be established first. Protocol adoption by the masses is key. The next logical step is interop between islands that speak the same language, but to date have had no direct bridges. In the IP world that is called peering. I am a big fan of multi-lateral VoIP Peering and this is a good move.

I had the chance to catch up with Shrihari Pandit CEO of Stealth Communications, owners of the Voice Peering Fabric. Aside from the usual highly stimulating conversation the short story is:

• The VPF now has over 350 (increasingly enterprise) members
• Over 56 Million active numbers in the VPF ENUM registry hitting peaks of 1 million successful calls (lookups) per day
• An annual run-rate of over 537 Billion minutes as of March 5th

There is a lot happening with the VPF, so much that Shrihari hasn't even had time to communicate it all. The progress is evident in the increasing number of members, and call volumes which seem to be accelerating even in this down economy. It looks like the enterprise IT managers might be beginning to realize the benefits of VoIP Peering now that many of them have migrated to VoIP and been running with it for a while.

Evolution takes time and requires patience, but in the end change is inevitable.

From a February 8th, 2009 Rice University News Release

"In the first real-world test of a revolutionary type of computing that thrives on random errors, scientists have created a microchip that uses 30 times less electricity while running seven times faster than today's best technology. The U.S.-Singapore team developing the new technology, dubbed PCMOS [pronounced "pee-cee-moss"], revealed its results in San Francisco TODAY at the International Solid-State Circuits Conference (ISSCC), the premier forum for engineers and scientists working at the cutting edge of integrated-circuit design."

"...PCMOS piggybacks on the "complementary metal-oxide semiconductor" technology, or CMOS, that chipmakers already use. That means chipmakers won't have to buy new equipment to support PCMOS, or "probabilistic" CMOS. Although PCMOS runs on standard silicon, it breaks with computing's past by abandoning the set of mathematical rules -- called Boolean logic -- that have thus far been used in all digital computers. PCMOS instead uses probabilistic logic..."

As it has been long noted the only way to deal with growth is to waste more raw materials and energy trying to keep up, or improve the math. Better algorithims mean better production. We can see this in a range of things from compression (codecs) to DWDM to financial trading. Everything is possible with better math.

The driving force behind the Rice / Nanyang Technological University teams is "green" energy and reducing the IT industry's carbon footprint. I can personally attest to the need for power consumption reduction in carrier hotel, colocation and data center facilities worldwide. I'm not sure if this new logic will have an immediate, or substantial impact on that runaway power draw, but it certainly is a step in the right direction. Evolution is change and we certainly need to change they way we think to change the way we consume energy.

For more on the news check out the ISSCC and, or the Rice University National Media

There is a lot going on in the world of broadband development these days even if it is one-sided and a bit misunderstood. The US House passed the $819billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act - with no Republican support at all. What does that tell us? I'm not really sure.

Out of the $819b only $6b (maybe $9b before it is over) is dedicated to broadband infrastructure development. What does that tell us?

I think that $6b can go a very long way IF IT IS SPENT PROPERLY. I think $813b can easily get wasted away if it is not.

I'll take $1b. That's more than enough to make a material difference in the lives of many in this country. It's all about knowing the right thing do to and the right way to do it.

God Bless (and save) America!

Skype IS Internet-based VoIP Peering and a very good example of it. Proving the point that multi-lateral (free) calling is preferred over the next best choice in a least-cost route Rich Tehrani just blogged about an Om Malik analysis of Skype's numbers in an eBay filing.

Two very powerful elements of multi-lateral VoIP Peering, compounding viral growth and user cost savings realized from it, were captured in this comment by Rich,

"The problem as you might imagine is Skype-to-Skype minutes are growing much faster than SkypeOut and this only makes sense when you consider broadband is spreading and computers are getting much cheaper. In fact you can potentially justify a netbook from your telephone savings of a month or less in some countries/situations."

The "problem" being referred to is that the growth of multi-lateral is a hit to Skype revenue. The benefit to the user is reflected in the ability to buy a netbook (maybe notebook computer?) with the savings. This is the way it works for huge corporations too. Multi-lateral on-net callng cuts costs and can save enough to keep jobs, buy new gear, finance the business, year-end bonuses, whatever...

I was searching for some current data on the effects of broadband development on the economy and came across this posting. I actually was not very surprised that it's from a fellow TMC blogger. The reports mentioned tell the true story. Broadband drives productivity and growth, both personal and business, which drives the economy.

Build it, they are already there!

Let's hope we can get it going fast enough to save the US!

Aside from the obvious relationship there is an apparent not-so-obvious distinction that needs to be made. Internet Protocol is NOT the Internet and Voice over Internet Protocol is NOT Voice over the Internet. Voice over the Internet is also referred to as Internet Telephony although even those two applications of voice have their differences as well and should not be used interchangeably.

Knowing the difference is to better understand the real "threats" that face voice over the Internet and VoIP separately and that difference is critical. For an enterprise thinking about deploying VoIP on a corporate Wide Area Network that never touches the public Internet the miseducation and therefore belief that VoIP is insecure may cause them to delay, or avoid deploying a VoIP network. This is a level of fear, uncertainty and doubt that the industry could do without.

Part of the issue is embedded in research and working groups that base their studies and ultimately their findings on this flawed information. One such group is SPEERMINT - Session PEERing for Mulitmedia INTerconnect, which is a working group within the IETF.

From their recent November 2008 Security Threats and Countermeasures posting:

"With VoIP, the need for security is compounded because there is the need to protect both the control plane and the data plane. In a legacy telephone system, security is a more valid assumption. Intercepting conversations requires either physical access to telephone lines or to compromise the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) nodes or the office Private Branch eXchanges (PBXs). Only particularly security-sensitive organizations bother to encrypt voice traffic over traditional telephone lines. In contrast, the risk of sending unencrypted data across the Internet is more significant (e.g. DTMF tones corresponding to the credit card number). An additional security threat to Internet Telephony comes from the fact that the signaling devices may be addressed directly by attackers as they use the same underlying networking technology as the multimedia data; traditional telephone systems have the signaling network separated from the data network. This is an increased security threat since a hacker could attack the signaling network and its servers with increased damage potential (call hijacking, call drop, DoS attacks, etc.). Therefore there is the need of investigating the different security threats, to extract security-related requirements and to highlight the solutions how to protect from such threats."

I know the IETF are a very smart bunch and really mean well, but the issue perpetuates and spreads. Even the New York Times gets it wrong. From December 2008 article on the Mumbai terror attacks:

"Indian security forces surrounding the buildings were able to monitor the terrorists' outgoing calls by intercepting their cellphone signals. But Indian police officials said those directing the attacks, who are believed to be from Lashkar-e-Taiba, a militant group based in Pakistan, were using a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) phone service, which has complicated efforts to determine their whereabouts and identities.

VoIP services, in which conversations are carried over the Internet as opposed to conventional phone lines or cellphone towers, are increasingly popular with people looking to save money on long distance and international calls. Many such services, like Skype and Vonage, allow a user to call another VoIP-enabled device anywhere in the world free of charge, or to call a standard telephone or cellphone at a deeply discounted rate."

Clearly the technology and service are not clear enough. Sadly there are many more articles just like this from the New York Times and other very respected newspapers and other publications. This may not have any impact on most of the world and they could not care less as they do not even know why it would matter, but for many in the VoIP hardware/software business it matters a lot and could mean the difference between getting a sale and not.

There is nothing wrong with VoIP, or Voice over the Internet, but there is something wrong with telling people one is the other when it really is not.

Here is an update on the Middle East undersea cable cuts.

Internet services are reportedly back to normal after having capacity reduced by as much as 47% for some countries since December 19th, 2008 due to 3 undersea cables being cut in a total of 4 places.

• Sea Me We 4 was repaired by France Télécom on December 25th. However, this cable broke again at a different location the same day, offshore of Alexandria, Egypt, and the repair team had to be dispatched to repair the new breach there.
• The second breach on Sea Me We 4 was repaired yesterday January 5th
• The second cable, FLAG, was fixed on December 31st
• The third cable, Sea Me We 3, is reportedly going to be repaired today

When the undersea cables are cut all services are impacted - voice, data, Internet, video, broadcast TV, HD, whatever... Disaster planning is critical to maintain service in outages such as these - which seem to happen quite often.

I've been using YouTube as a way to disseminate information via video for a couple of years now and I just crossed a milestones of sorts. Recently an interview from the June 2008 Voice Peering Forum in San Francisco with me, Rich Tehrani and Gary Kim was posted and it has been recognized by YouTube -

YouTube: Honor for video: Most Viewed Today (#88 + #100 within Science & Technology)

Dubbed the Teleom Talk Show it has now been viewed 4780 times. That's not as popular as some of the other content posted on YouTube, but for our little sliver of the world it's not so bad. The really amazing thing about it is the direct response that I have received from the viewers. The Telecom Talk Show discussion topics ranged, but of particular interest was a new dark fiber route being constructed. The various benefits of dark fiber for long haul, short haul, Fiber To The Tower (wirelesss backhaul) and regen colocation facilities all combined in to the construction of a new, single network are very powerful and meaningful to many people in and around the higher layers of the stack as well as well as the wavelength and Ethernet transport providers. Without this video and YouTube there are several people out there that might not have known the information.

This type of YouTube Talk Show is very effective for any kind of information and every company out there should consider it for part of their marketing/branding campaigns. It certainly helps having industry celebrities like Rich Tehrani and Gary Kim to drive traffic too!

Over the past couple of years I have hosted several video interviews on topics ranging from carrier hotels and undersea cables to Ethernet transport and voice and VoIP peering.

Recently my interview with Jim Castagna of Verzion from the June 2008 Voice Peering Forum was posted. Jim is one of the smartest people I have met and had the pleasure of discussing voice interconnection with. Given that he is with Verizon implies that he would have a broad knowledge of such things, but it is that he IS with Verizon and knows of such things that I find so fascinating.

Verizon (and any incumbent really) has a lot of legacy network, process and revenue tied to it and for that reason it may be thought that they do not have the will, ability, or desire to be involved with the cutting edge, or facilitating change. That may be true in some situations, but apparently not for Verzion. The truth is that they are large and move slowly with certain things, but they do move and are quite aware of what is going on around them.

Jim knows a great deal about voice peering and interconnection as is evidenced by the interview. It will be interesting to see how everything turns out over the next couple of years in this arena.