VoIP—Nothing New

May 2, 2007

In the past decade, the world has witnessed a major transformation from circuit-switched technologies to packet-switched technologies. Said another way, the traditional PSTN over which the world has historically placed phone calls is being replaced with IP networks (more commonly referred to as VoIP).

Through this transition, we have seen the prices of phone calls fall and we have seen the emergence of very exciting technologies like Skype. Most of the international long distance carriers have migrated their networks to H.323 and IP-based videoconferencing is gaining in popularity.

But with all of this excitement, there is still one very important question that us end-users should be asking. What new capabilities do we get? We get voice like the PSTN and we get video like ISDN (using H.320) systems). What else?

Some might argue that VoIP enables a host of new applications and are quick to point out presence and instant messaging. The fact is, though, that the world has been using those technologies for years on their PCs, Pocket PCs, and other devices. And are you going to set your status on your phone every time you get up from your desk or when you return? VoIP did not enable those technologies, but merely tried to (painfully) marry the two technologies. But, to what end?

The bottom line is that VoIP, for all its hype, is positioned to do only one thing: replace the existing telephone or room-based videoconferencing system with a similar telephone or videoconferencing system connected to the IP network. How exciting is that?

The industry has been working on multimedia communication systems for years and, as part of that work, has created systems that deliver a host of multimedia capabilities. Those capabilities include voice, video, application sharing, electronic whiteboard, file transfer, and other applications. Unfortunately, there has been no way to smoothly integrate those applications. Sometimes the user uses a PC application, sometimes a web browser, and in all cases, uses a separate telephone in order to participate in the voice discussion.

What the industry needs is a way for those distinct applications to smoothly integrate so that the user can make a phone call and immediately have a host of multimedia applications available as part of the phone call, including file transfer, application sharing, and text communication.

Just recently, the ITU started a new project called H.325 which looks poised to tackle this very issue. It may be the key to truly revolutionizing communication systems as we know it. Take a look at these concept slides to get an idea of what is being considered.