BY EVAN KOBLENTZ
Technology Editor, TMC Labs™

The Three Es: Efficiency, Effort, And Enhanced Services

While traveling to CTI EXPO this week, a colleague and I discussed the future of Internet telephony and enhanced services. We agreed that in the near future, per-minute long-distance calls from the big three domestic carriers could hover at about a nickel, and that such inexpensive pricing coupled with big-carrier reliability could pose a threat to companies preaching nothing but cheap IP-based long-distance. Services, we agreed, are where it's at.

So, while walking the show floor, I kept watch for services. Of the hundreds of exhibitors and 16,000 attendees who all wanted "just five minutes!" of TMC Labs' time, one booth especially caught my eye: #347, with Centrepoint Technologies (www.ctrpoint.com) and TekDigiTel Corp. (www.tekdigitel.com).

Their joint venture will produce a single black-box unit combining Centrepoint's Concero SOHO PBX and a version of TekDigiTel's V-Server Elite Internet telephony gateway. The product hasn't been named yet, but versions will cater to both the retail end-user market and to service providers, and will cost from $1,000-$1,700.

Giving the users or subscribers a choice of ISDN, dial-up, or xDSL/cable (Ethernet) access, the device essentially creates a SOHO voice/data switch. The service-provider prototype offers four extensions, two PSTN trunks, and four VoIP extensions, compressed with the ITU's G.723 standard of 5.3 Kbps. Best of all, the units will feature H.323 compatibility. SOHOs of the future could use screenphones or NetMeeting clients at the desktop with xDSL or cable telephony connections to the outside world, all without ever touching an RBOC or ILEC wire. A lot of players win with this model, including the ITSP or CLEC, the end user, and the CPE vendors. This partnership has the potential to be a killer app -- and you thought the IP-PBX was just for the enterprise!

One foreseeable issue with a SOHO voice/data switch is that of maintenance. As with the category of boxes that combine a printer, scanner, and fax machine, if the network crashes for a voice/data switch, you're without either service -- only the large-scale systems offer emergency back-up voice extensions, and only the best models of them. Support and configuration is another issue. If the SOHO proprietor suspects that CompUSA is overcharging him for upgrading his PC's RAM, then he certainly won't trust them to maintain his entire data telephony network. End users who buy from service providers may get much higher levels of customer contact and support, but service providers are simply not in the network support business -- not yet, anyway. Look for a full product review of the Centrepoint/TekDigiTel device in an upcoming issue of CTI or Internet Telephony magazines, where we'll determine if the hybrid SOHO switch has what it takes to stand up to the abuses of non-expert administrators.

Yet another issue is feature bloat. The fact that the new Centrepoint/TekDigiTel device can function as a voice/data switch doesn't necessarily mean that everyone will use it in that capacity. Service providers should consider selling the units with optional feature modules and services, like IP call waiting, IP faxing, virtual second lines, virtual private networks, etc. The Concero unit already works well as a call bridge/call back device. Now, it may be useful for multimedia conference calls and even data collaboration as well.

The result is a trade-off of efficiency, effort, and enhanced services. Only the consumer can decide which mixture of these factors is best for their small, home or branch office, but a clear lesson here is that convergence leading to one less wire is the future, and that it's not just for large organizations. Myself and my colleagues at TMC Labs look forward to hearing your feedback about this topic.

Evan Koblentz welcomes your comments at ekoblentz@tmcnet.com.