IP Convergence: Beyond VoIP, Beyond Cost Savings

Diving into CALEA, what I find scary is vendors like AcmePacket will not have code revisions complete until late April (version 5.0 for the SD platform). The CALEA deadline is May 14. (that's tomorrow in the software development world)

Many companies will either not make the CALEA compliance dead line and face unknown punishments (rumors from legal departments everywhere of $10k a day until you are compliant). Or Providers face the option of recklessly dropping half tested code into a production network and crossing their fingers in the hope it works. And that's only if AcmePacket meets their target date of "late April." I don't know about you, but I've never seen a code release on time without a dozen or more bugs; those delivered "on time" are followed by a dozen or more point releases to correct the faults.

How does a VoIP provider explain to his customers that the network is down hard because he had to deploy untested/partially tested code into the production network? And he did so, because the FCC required it...

And we haven't even touched on the cost to implement a solution that is compliant; even if a provider can outsource to a Trusted Third Party (TTP), the cost is extremely high for smaller companies.

And of course, there remains the question, will CALEA do any good?
(if a certain congressman had kept his mouth shut, we'd still be listening in on the satellite phones the bad guys thought could not be tapped...) But now you've got me headed down the political front... I'll stop here...

-Guy Fawkes
...remember, remember...