September 1998

• Andy Voss, Vice President, Marketing, Nuera Communications, Inc.

• Robert S. Pearlstein, Director, Sales & Marketing, OKI Network Technologies

• Kent Elliott, President and Chief Executive Officer, Vienna Systems Corporation

• Ney Grant, Vice President of Marketing & New Business Development, Castelle

• Brian L. Lichorowic, Vice President, Marketing, White Pine Software, Inc.

• Elon Ganor, Chairman and CEO, VocalTec Communications Ltd.

Andy Voss, Vice President, Marketing, Nuera Communications, Inc.
Internet telephony holds tremendous promise for advanced features. But, we have to be careful not to overlook the fact that mainstream acceptance depends on quality improvements as well as delivery of enhanced functions. The quality and reliability of communication via the traditional PSTN sets a high standard for IP telephony to match. (Public Internet telephony will never match the reliability, of course, as long as dynamic routing prevents accountability by a particular service provider.) Since there was no previous, publicly accessible data network, the Internet had no data predecessor, so people who suffer(ed) through continual busy signals and slow feeds were dissatisfied but could revert only to an alternative of no service at all. In the case of telephony, there's an existing alternative, so mainstream acceptance of IP telephony requires approximating PSTN quality to eliminate a significant - and legitimate -- objection to its use.

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Robert S. Pearlstein, Director, Sales & Marketing, OKI Network Technologies
Today, Internet telephony is all about toll bypass and saving money. However, the future of Internet telephony will be in the new enhanced services offered through use of the technology. Some of these new applications will include: Call center integration with the Web; Unified message delivery via the Web; Audio and video conferencing through the Internet; Multimedia collaboration; and more. ACD/Call Center integration with the Web provides an excellent example of a killer app we will see in the near future. Web browsing customers, without having to disconnect from their computers and with no need for a second line, will be able to click on a URL stating "talk to representative," which would initiate a call to a company's sales or technical support agent. Service staff agents, viewing the same page as the person online, will now be able to direct the user to other information or instruct them as to what to do next. The process will dramatically speed up the sales cycle as well as lead to greater levels of customer service. Such applications will dramatically facilitate the growth of Web commerce into the mainstream, while also setting the stage for other future enhancements. The possibilities are endless.

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Kent Elliott, President and Chief Executive Officer, Vienna Systems Corporation
The growth of the Internet and the overwhelming acceptance of IP as the protocol of choice for data networks have guaranteed IP telephony's future and will facilitate its acceptance into the "mainstream." Over the next 6-18 months, the objective for IP telephony will be to develop hybrid networks and services that allow new IP telephony services to "bolt on" to the existing telephony infrastructure, ensuring new end-user applications and new revenue sources for service providers. IP telephony, while still a relatively new technology, will be able to leverage the ubiquity and high reliability of these traditional infrastructures. Examples of hybrid networks or hybrid services we will see in the next 6-18 months include:

• Bundled voice and data services from service providers. Just like getting your house and car insurance from the same provider, users will benefit from lower prices and convenience, and service providers will generate new revenue.
• Web based-telephony married with traditional call center networks. Allowing inbound data calls from Web sites that connect you to a live person at the touch of a button is the first step. Eventually, Web telephony will marry with e-commerce applications.
• PBX systems go "mobile." The PC-based PBX is a neat idea, but again, traditional PBXs are working too well for organizations to throw them out. IP telephony can step in now and offer the advantages of PBX connectivity.
• Digit dialing, memory dialing, caller ID, transfer, and conference to workers in remote locations not served by the corporate PBX (traveling workers, teleworkers, and small remote offices).

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Ney Grant, Vice President of Marketing & New Business Development, Castelle
Many "enterprise" fax companies boast of mammoth installations with hundreds or thousands of users and numerous T1 circuits in use. Because it's a well known fact that significant cost-savings can potentially be realized by using IP-based fax routing, most of these companies also offer some kind of Internet fax routing. However, the expense and administration overhead of these large systems has made rollout of Internet fax rather slow. For example, the expense in buying and installing a second or third system at remote offices negates the cost savings realized routing via the Internet. In addition, all vendors are working on their own routing protocols so very few of the systems from the 50 or so fax vendors will "talk" to each other.

We believe the fax standards that are being worked on will enable intercommunication between disparate systems, which would allow relatively inexpensive "branch office" fax servers to communicate with the centralized "enterprise" fax servers. For example, in the U.S., that may mean most faxes will be sent via the central site where telephone costs are the cheapest; international fax traffic most likely will be pushed out via the Internet to the sites closest to the destination.

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Brian L. Lichorowic, Vice President, Marketing, White Pine Software, Inc.
In the coming months, (and in some cases, available today) vertically targeted products will provide the needed acceptance of this technology. It's the classic example of the PageMaker 1.0 product model. By itself, people didn't know what to do with a desktop publishing technology, but once they went to the template folders, they found its purpose and the way to apply it to their business/schools. IP telephony and conferencing is no different. For example, every school with an Internet technology implementation could buy an IP telephony or conferencing solution now. Schools that are not financially or technologically prepared may soon be ready. But, as to how to apply it to an everyday function is still "in the air" in many peoples' minds. Purpose is needed. These kinds of customers need higher "Template" support models to become satisfied users and embrace the technology.

Many customers have already indicated that they need the ability for the leader/moderator/teacher to easily control the participation, and need a way for employees/attendees/students to initiate questions. A simple Web-based setup procedure would further lower barriers. The ability to use current hardware, and easier ability to gather large groups is becoming an issue that will need to be addressed quickly.

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Elon Ganor, Chairman and CEO, VocalTec Communications Ltd.
VocalTec has long understood that IP networks will be the dominant platform for worldwide communications. Currently, cost is the main reason for converting voice into IP data packets. With this new technology, carriers and corporations can build more bandwidth-efficient and cost-effective communications networks than traditional circuit-switched networks. Voice and data convergence also eliminates the expense of maintaining two networks.

Beyond the cost advantage, the future of IP telephony lies in the advanced multimedia and intelligent applications that IP networks, unlike traditional networks, are designed to support. VocalTec already offers applications that support these new multimedia services such as calls from PC-to-PC with video, PC-to-phone, and Web-to-phone. Another example of a "killer" application, that is changing the way people communicate, is the VocalTec multi-point conferencing solution that allows callers to simultaneously talk and work on a document (such as a Power Point presentation). This multipoint application also joins callers from regular phones with callers from PC clients.

Intelligent services will also change communications habits of callers worldwide. For example, advanced intelligent IP-based applications will provide users with single access numbers for all their communications devices. Users will be able to define which calls they want to receive on which devices -- pagers, e-mail, PC, or traditional phones -- at work or at home.

Anticipating a future rich in "killer" IP telephony applications, VocalTec has introduced the VocalTec Ensemble Architecture to support global, centrally managed, secure and redundant IP communications. Moving the intelligence from the core to the edge of the network, this platform's design can economically incorporate new and powerful applications, keeping carriers and corporations on the forefront of this evolving field.

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