The release of the Notice of Funding Availability ("NOFA") (found here http://www.rurdev.usda.gov/arra/BBNOFAFINALwithdisclaimer.pdf) by the RUS and NTIA for their BIP and BTOP programs was welcome (if belated) news. Somewhat astonishingly, it appears to be fairly well thought out and prudent in its approach. The review process is tiered and applications are subject to panel review by knowledgeable people. Thankfully RUS and NTIA heard the comments of numerous parties, including Global Crossing, that funding for middle mile services is essential to the overall success of the program with nearly $2 billion of the $4 billion allocated for middle mile services. Of course, the devil is in the details and I need to review the NOFA more thoroughly, but it certainly is promising.

Important yet subtle differences in SIP Trunking: Line-side versus Trunk-side

Whenever I get into a discussion around SIP Trunking, it’s important for me to establish the type of SIP Trunking that is being discussed.  The most important question for me is determining if the context is “line-side” SIP Trunking, or “trunk-side” SIP Trunking.  There are subtle, yet very important differences to consider when designing the SIP Trunking solution. 

The difference between “line-side” and “trunk-side” lies in the administrative domain that the Telephony Server (the network element that is supplying “dial-tone”) resides.  In a “line-side” configuration, the telephony engine supporting the SIP-based endpoint (typically a IP-phone) is “IP-Centrex”, “Hosted Telephony” (I like this link because she's holding a CD and CDs have everything to do with VoIP! ;) ), or “Cloud Telephony” (just google this term as it's just silly to try to find one definition).  The registration of the IP phone to the telephony server traverses the SIP Trunk.  Read more

Last week, Light Reading had an article discussing Cisco’s plans to add a functionality to its routers termed “VidMon”, effectively a technology that aims to replace most external probe devices and monitor the quality of the video network and experience, pretty cool if you ask me. For a network administrator, having this type of functionality integrated into the router infrastructure should allow for fairly straightforward monitoring and troubleshooting that should improve the overall end user experience (and reduce the angry phone calls that a video conference is horrible and they never want to use the service again).Read more

Within the last month I have met with over  20 customers, and all but one had the same  requirement: “How can you help me manage my communications costs?”

There are many ways that an enterprise can better manage their communications costs:

1.    Billing accuracy  - Insure monthly invoices are accurate with correct up and running inventory & usage .  Some larger service providers offer an extended service (for  a fee)  to insure their bills are accurate.

2.    Managed services – Managed services offer an enterprise an opportunity to outsource the risk of CapEx for CPE as well as the risk of OpEx in operationalzing new technologies.

3.    Convergence – Combining voice, video and data onto a single enterprise WAN eliminates ISDN PRIs for Voice,  ISDN BRIs for Video and separate access for data and internet onto single access solution into a site.  That’s about 4 unique access solutions into 1. And given the costs of access as a ratio to an overall solution – that is a pretty nice number. 

Convergence does come with a price,  new routers may needed ,  however managed services can help mitigate this cost.  And the addition of VoIP and IP Video requires new PBXs and Video end points.  My recommendation is start off combining data and internet onto a stable QoS VPN solution then add VoIP and IP Video as your business analysis allows for.

Stay tuned our latest whitepaper on convergence should be released shortly and it will have some great analyst references as proof points that convergence has gone mainstream.

T.38 Fax – been there, done that, 4 years running….

First the article here (http://tr.im/p5sv)  - about VoIP testing solutions.  And in this article this..

Devfoundry’s President Athir Nuaimi, says, “There’s been a renewed interest in fax-over-IP testing. The SIP Forum (News - Alert) has put together a task group to try and get that fast-tracked. T.38 was formulated over a decade ago, but it really never went very far. Many people put a lot of blood, sweat and tears to try to get it to work, and have had limited success in some small domains. But the biggest issue is that the large carriers really haven’t supported it until the last year or two. Global Crossing now supports it, and I believe most of the other major backbone VoIP providers either have T.38 support or it’s in the trial phase. It’s taken a long time, but the stuff is actually now available to customers if they want it, but there’s still some compatibility issues, enough so that a number of what are basically equipment vendors as well as some service providers, have put together this ‘task force’.”

Now for a little tidbit of information. -  we (Global Crossing) have been supporting T.38 for 4 years (since July of 2005). 

Allow me to speak for most VoIP Engineers, we would like to see faxing just go away all together. One would think in the age of PDF, email, digital signatures (and good old snail mail), faxing would just go away all together.  Like the high school football star that didn’t amount to anything and is clinging to his past accolades with all of his diminishing might, FAX (as with Mr. QB) just needs to give it up already!!!

Adam “voiploser” UzelacRead more

SIP Virtualization

I believe that most folks within the “computer” field have heard of Virtualization.  I would like to introduce what may be a new term to the industry; SIP Virtualization.  The concept we have conceived here at Global Crossing borrows from many of the same constructs from the popular definition.  For reference, a brief history of Virtualization is in order.

Virtualization was conceived back in days of the Mainframe (1960s).  The mainframes of the day were expensive and underutilized.  To increase the value of the investment, a logical (read as, not physical) partitioning of the computing resource was developed.  This partitioning created “Virtual Machines” within the greater single physical form factor. In order to achieve this, an abstraction of the physical elements and the software-based operating system was introduced.  In this manner, Operating Systems were able to leverage and share common hardware.  It was no longer necessary to dedicate a hard-drive or a network interface to a specific instance of software.  This notion has since enjoyed a rebirth using x86 computing architectures.

How ambiguous is the term ‘virtualization’ or ‘virtual’ within the computing industry?  Here’s some that am personally aware of and use often…
-    Virtual Reality
-    Virtual Memory
-    Virtual Private Network
-    Desktop Virtualization
-    Virtual IP Address
-    Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol
-    Virtual Router

For sake of this discussion, I will cherry-pick a rather simple definition from whatis.com.  Read more

The Unstated Value of SIP Trunking Providers

Speaking as one that has an intimate technical knowledge of SIP Trunking in my professional life, I feel it’s my public duty to increase public discourse around SIP Trunking.  First, let’s start by establishing the context of the discussion with a definition of SIP Trunking.  A google search (June 2009)  on a ‘SIP Trunking’ returns ~500k references. 

From Wikipedia (replace ‘connection’ with Trunk)
 A SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) connection is a service offered by many ITSP (Internet Telephony Service Providers) that connects a company's PBX to the existing telephone system infrastructure(PSTN) via Internet using the SIP VoIP standard. Read more

When telepresence was first conceived, the goals were lofty, the vision was exceptional and the general feeling was that this was a technology that would transform the industry, and not just the communications world. The predictions intimated that industries such as airline and hotel could be greatly impacted and the societal changes would be unfathomable (think of the Cisco commercial of Telepresence in a tent from a 3^rd world location).Read more

The question is “What WAN technology should you use MPLS or VPLS”.
 
Let’s start off by saying that there is no debate between the exclusive use of the technologies,  they both have a place in enterprise WAN applications.
 
Let me explain by describing the legacy and current WAN environment.
 
Legacy WANs utilized ATM and/or Private lines between data center locations,  these technologies are layer 2 and layer 1 respectively,  Frame Relay was used to connect sites (at layer 2) into the datacenter assets.  Clearly Frame Relay is used as the access network while ATM/Private line shore up datacenter assets.
 
Introduce a network based Layer 3 VPNs (aka MPLS,  which really are utilizing RFC 2547bis to bind sites to a VPN association for a customer which is transported over a MPLS core) clearly Layer 3 VPNs were developed to address the weaknesses in legacy WAN , specifically on the access network side to displace Frame Relay and provide any to any, easier remote access and extranets (all 3 of which are difficult with a frame relay solution). 
 
In this case Layer 3 VPNs were also introduced into datacenter to datacenter applications as providers and enterprises tried to solve world hunger with a single technology approach.  Well any IT organization that is dynamic (i.e. new applications introduced into production datacenters) found using layer 3 VPNs across datacenters difficult as they would have to work with the provider at layer 3 and limit/constrain their ability to manage applications in production datacenters.
 Read more

HD VoIP – Ridding Us of the Music-on-hold Tease

On the heels of the hyper marketing of HD Television, makers of VoIP endpoints supporting HD Voice have been making a huge push as of late.  The difference between standard voice and HD voice is quantifiably noticeable – HD voice is better sounding without a doubt.  Traditional voice samples voice from our vocal cords between 300Hz and 3.4kHz.  HD voice, on the other hand, samples in the range of 50Hz to 7kHz.  This means that the very low and high ranges of voice are being captures in a world of HD Voice, and lost in land of POTS phones.  We are talking about “FM versus AM on our radio dial” kind of differences here. Read more

The year started out promising enough.  Kevin Martin, the previous (some have said autocratic) FCC Chairman resigned on January 20^th and Commissioner Copps, a long-time public servant, was named interim Chairman.    Julius Genachowski was nominated as the new FCC Chairman on March 3rd.  Read more

..trust me, it's different than yesterday's..

• Software Provider: UC entails the convergence of multimodal communication solutions into a single user interface, with a foundation of Identity, Presence, Instant Messaging, Unified Messaging, and even audio/video/data if you are so bold - you can use your PC as a Phone!  (don't tell Skype)

• Hardware Provider: UC entails the integration of multimodal communication solutions leveraging the intelligence of your network, with a foundation of VoIP Telephony, Network Gear, and all that cool video/data/IM stuff noted above - haven't you always wanted to join a web conference from your iPhone?  (do I have coverage on the 9th hole?)

• Telecom Provider: It's all data?!?  Did someone say bigger pipes? (Yes!)

Regardless of who you are talking to, Unified Collaboration is simply about converging multiple collaboration solutions into a common user interface, or a tightly coupled and integrated user environment. Whether you are providing your users with a standard IM and Presence engine today, or integrating a VoIP and Video enabled experience into your CRM tool, you are working to attain the same goal – reduce communications latency and provide faster, more efficient access to information.Read more

With all the emphasis on cutting costs lately, a lot of customers have been asking if these new high-end video conferencing solutions are worth the high price tags. 

There are certainly a lot of lessons to be taken from the latest high-end conferencing systems, namely that the design of the rooms used in the solution make all the difference compared with your 'corner of the conference room' installation.  My take on the key elements are:Read more

The recent headlines are amazing; the bankruptcies of American icons, massive workforce reductions, IT spending is being slashed and comparisons are being made on many fronts to the dot-com bust of 2001. Organizations are being asked to produce more with less human and capital resource in a shorter amount of time. The challenges ahead are significant indeed and hopefully we are a little better equipped to confront them head-on.