BY RICH TEHRANI

I’ve just returned from a whirlwind tour of multiple trade shows, coupled with visits to many of the industry’s best and brightest players and the consensus is that the Internet telephony industry is literally booming. Many companies selling Internet telephony gateways tell me the trial deployments they have put in place over the last years have struck pay dirt and customers are beginning to order in quantity.

Cabletron
Cabletron, a leader in enterprise networking, has decided to finally (seriously) throw its hat into the Internet telephony ring. Back in June, Cabletron announced a strategic partnership with Hypercom a manufacturer of a range of Internet telephony gateways and products. Cabletron will supply Hypercom gateways with their own SmartSwitch Router that includes Layer 4 prioritization. Cabletron’s SPECTRUM, their well-known network management software, will supply integrated management capabilities for the management of voice, data, and PBXs in one integrated package.

Beyond this alliance, Cabletron has told me that they plan on developing a broad range of Internet telephony products that will be targeted at both the enterprise and carrier markets. Included in my discussions were media/SS7 gateways and other solutions that service providers need. Expect Cabletron to partner as necessary to get the job done. Seems Cabletron’s battles with Cisco will follow from pure datacom to converged networks.

ACT Networks
Act Networks, a leader in the voice over frame relay market, was perhaps the last holdout to introduce an Internet telephony gateway. The latest NetPerformer models are now able to transmit voice over IP networks. Interestingly, Act Networks tells me that voice over frame relay is still the best packet-based voice solution today, but they admit that in a few years the packet telephony world will be predominantly IP-based.

Nortel Delivers
When Nortel swallowed up Bay Networks for 9 billion dollars, many of their competitors maintained that it would be extremely difficult to integrate the two huge companies into a seamless whole. Admittedly, Nortel’s recent announcement that they are about to release their Enterprise Edge voice/data switch, (an NT-based IP-enabled PBX with an integrated router) makes them last to the party of three (the competitors being of course Lucent’s IPES system and Cisco’s Selsius division). In the July issue of INTERNET TELEPHONY, I detailed Nortel’s plans in the Internet telephony field. Well, they’re staring to deliver. This rack mountable, NT voice/data switch is just part of a huge Internet telephony rollout we can soon expect from this giant in converged networks.

Nokia
I am a huge fan of Nokia cell phones. If you read my online column “One Less Wire” or my columns in CTI Magazine, you no doubt know that I have recently switched from a Nokia 6160 to a newer and sleeker 6185. Sadly, a visit to Nokia’s booth informed me that my new sleek 6185 that is but a few months old is fast becoming as obsolete as rotary was when digital came out. The first new phone that I saw was the 8860, the sleekest and most stylish phone I have ever seen. If that wasn’t depressing enough, they are soon to release (as are just about all their competitors) a WAP (wireless application programming) interface phone with Web access. This model — the 7100 — will have the ability to surf certain WAP-enabled sites on the Web. When I asked about IP telephony phones, the answer I got was a blunt “no comment.” Now, I am not much of a fortuneteller, but I suppose that means Nokia will release such a device any day now. (In fact, I’d be willing to bet that Nokia has released such a product by the time you read this column).

I get the feeling that Nokia will own the IP world someday. It seems that they have a commanding lead in the cell phone market, they have great Internet telephony products, and are among the leaders in the wireless LAN market as well.

Nokia representatives tell me that they are happy to let Cisco build the Internet; their goal is to connect people to it. They are certainly hard at work there.

CONCLUSION
So there you have it. The highlights from my latest two-week nationwide jaunt to ferret out the news you can use in the Internet telephony market. The parts I left out mind you were how I narrowly missed being stuck in a hurricane; stood in an Internet telephony card manufacturer’s office during an earthquake; lost my luggage for two days; and the ingestion (indigestion?) of many courses of generally miserable airline food. Granted, I made it through all of the above with a smile because frankly, I really love what I do and it makes me happy to see that the industry we have been writing about for years is finally beginning to take off. c

It’s funny that detractors of Internet telephony often argue that Internet telephony is not ready for prime time. They argue that as a hobbyist tool, it will never be up to the quality levels of the PSTN and as such we should banish it to the PCs of techno-geeks and hackers. I am often amazed at how silly these people are, should a technology that is only a few years old be expected to go head to head with technology that has been around for 100 years? Obviously the PSTN has a bit of a head start.

Now, the term Internet telephony is a loose one and I use it broadly, referring to telephony traveling over any IP-based network. IP over ATM WAN, IP over Ethernet, IP over whatever. The medium doesn’t really matter. Whatever quality issues need to be resolved, will be resolved on private networks and the Internet. (Admittedly, it will be much easier to overcome quality issues on private networks that are under a single entity’s control.)

But, were we to consider telephony over the Internet and compare it with the PSTN, should we dismiss Internet telephony as being much less stable and robust than its circuit-switched counterpart? I think not. And here’s why, The Internet was originally designed to survive a nuclear war. There are redundant pathways and nodes that packets may traverse to get to their final destination. The traditional PSTN has no such inherent design built in.

Once the quality of service issues of the Internet do get resolved once and for all, expect Internet telephony to be every bit as reliable as its circuit-switched counterpart. Perhaps even more so.

Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

I love this expression. As a former MIS director, I had to use it often to make sure my users truly comprehended the value of training. To truly understand and benefit from anything, we must first and foremost come to understand it. And to fully understand any topic, it is imperative that you roll up your sleeves and “get your hands dirty.” It’s the difference between being a passenger and actually driving. There is no substitute for hands-on experience.

This “learning by doing” approach is exactly why we have so many live demonstrations in the Exhibit Hall at CTI EXPO (December 7-9, Las Vegas, NV). Of the many technology trade shows I attend per year, I have never seen the amount of live demonstrations that we provide at CTI EXPO. We are obsessed with giving you the best show possible.

So obsessed in fact that we have teamed with at least 50 different leading companies in the communications industry to provide you with objective information on every facet of communications today. From Learning Centers focusing on Linux CTI and Wireless CTI, to a Next-Generation Telco-In-A-Booth, to the Office of the Future and a Live CRM demo, there really is something for everyone. Here are the brief descriptions of the attractions as well as some of the participants that we’ve signed on so far. This list will no doubt change so please check our Web site for updates and additions.

Learning Centers
These Learning Centers will focus on the most important technologies affecting communications today.

Linux CTI: This promises to be an awesome Learning Center! I can’t wait to see it myself. Open source finally comes to telephony. Participants so far include White Pine (who make a variety of video conferencing and collaborative computing products); Quicknet (who makes the Internet Phone Jack); as well as Aculab, who is one of the DSP resource board makers that has thrown their full support behind this new and exciting platform.

Testing/Development: Hammer and Teltone will be demonstrating their testing and network simulation technology respectively while we can expect Artisoft, Brooktrout, Pronexus and Envox to educate you on the latest in development tools.

CT Media: The latest open telephony standard for building truly open client/server communications systems. The first major standard in the industry to have the backings of all the major industry players as well as Microsoft and Intel. Participants will include Dialogic, one of the major architects of CT Media as well as many of their partners. As of this writing we can expect Telekol to show their latest unified messaging technology.

Next Gen Call Centers: Expect leading-edge demos from CosmoCom, ATIO, Telephony@Work, and Aspect Communications.

Wireless CTI: Expect the latest in handhelds and palm-based computers from a wealth of participants.

Office of the Future: This is your first glimpse of how the state-of-the-art Office of the Future will look. Praxon will demonstrate their award-winning voice/data switch (an IP-based PBX), and PakNetX will demonstrate their IP telephony-based call center solution. They are the first company to ship an ACD on CD. Picazo will show their PC-PBX products in action. They are the first PC-PBX manufacturer to run on Windows 2000. Microsoft will show their latest software products, GN Netcom/Spectrum Technologies will show their latest headsets, and Romak (the supplier of the furniture at TMC’s headquarters) will demonstrate their latest furniture designs.

Next Gen Telco in a Booth: We have so many things in the works and the technology and services we want to show you evolve daily. Come to the show to see it for yourself!

2 Live Working Call Centers on the Show Floor
At last spring’s CTI EXPO in DC, the Live Multimedia Blended Call Center sponsored by CellIT and their partners was a huge hit. The agents in CellIT’s call center made and received over 11,000 calls in just two days! One impressive aspect of their solution was simply that it looked awesome — nicer than any call center I have visited. Beyond the ergonomic aesthetics, the hardware portion was stunning as well. Oak-based “glass house” cabinets housed truly state-of-the-art voice over ATM and voice-over-IP technology that eliminated the need for an external voice-only switch. Expect CellIT to top their DC Live Call Center debut with a working call center that will further connect to a live CRM Demo sponsored by Quintus (see below for details).

The latest addition to the US call center market comes from a company called Vocalcom. Vocalcom, a company that is quite well known in Europe, will be making their US debut at CTI EXPO in Las Vegas. To kick off their US presence, they will have a live, working call center on the show floor. Vocalcom’s technology is a PC-based call center solution not unlike the Interactive Intelligence model. They are able to connect with your existing CTI enabled call center products such as switches, or they can be the switch themselves. The interface of their call center solution is quite slick and acts as a front end to many of the call center features you would expect under the hood. Scripting, skills based call routing, e-mail routing, a strong statistics package, as well as call blending are all included. Vocalcom touts its solution as a “smart customer interaction” solution and it seems to be exactly that. Attendees will be able to view all of these technologies as well as interact with the agents on the show floor. A screen will allow you to witness exactly how calls are routed to the appropriate agent. CTI EXPO is proud to be the host of Vocalcom’s debut and we hope you will come welcome them to our shores.

Live Enterprise CRM Demo
Quintus Corporation, a leader in CRM products and technology has joined forces with both TMC and CellIT to allow attendees to view the ultimate CRM demonstration right on the show floor. There is simply no place else on the planet where you will be able to witness an Office Of The Future, two Live Call Centers and a live CRM demonstration working together in a single location.

Indeed, we have been working for months to ensure that you will come away from CTI EXPO with exactly the knowledge you need. If there is anything important happening in the world of communications, chances are, you will learn about it at CTI EXPO. There really is something for everyone. We look forward to seeing you in Vegas and as always, if you register online at www.tmcnet.com/ctiexpo, your registration is free, saving you $25. I hope to see you there.

PS: If you haven’t been to Las Vegas in a while, you are in for a very pleasant surprise. There are new properties being constructed on a regular basis, and the splendor of these resort hotels is too beautiful to describe. We were able to negotiate incredibly inexpensive hotel rates with the Bellagio and the Mirage, as well as our primary show hotel, the Las Vegas Hilton.