SIP Big in 2007

By Richard Tehrani, Publisher, Pubilsher's Outlook

The post holiday fog is leaving my brain and I am getting ready for another fantastic year in telecom. If I had to make predictions about the SIP market in the new year I would have to say there are numerous areas of growth.

Rather than give you my perspective exclusively, I contacted David Hattey, the President and CEO of FirstHand Technologies. As you may know, the company was formerly called SIPquest and has a product line fusing SIP and mobility.

I asked Dave for his perspective on SIP in 2007. He thinks ‘06 really set the groundwork for this year with Cisco announcing CallManager 5.0 with SIP support as well as every major vendor announcing SIP support. In 2007 he says 2 things are happening: First, SIP as a telephony protocol absolutely becomes prevalent. Every major company has announced support for it and it will permeate the space.

The second thing Dave sees happening is SIP being extended into mobility. He admits the comment is a bit selfserving as this is the space his company plays in — but this is going on with every major vendor, he says. The companies are extending SIP call control out into the mobility space as a data service over cellular packet, WiFi or WiMAX. He adds that several carriers and equipment vendors are looking at convergence of packet voice and packet cellular. He sees HSPDA and EVDO Rev. A as being drivers for this evolution of SIP in 2007.

In summary, Dave sees 2007 as the year that SIP permeates fixed telephony and mobile SIP will gain a foothold and emerges in the marketplace.

It is tough to disagree with Dave as my Publisher’s Outlook (http://www.tmcnet.com/434.1) in the last issue of this magazine — November 2006 discussed the acquisition of Orative by Cisco which coincidentally will also help Cisco bring presence information to the mobile user.

FirstHand Technologies (news - alert) hopes to have a new announcement in time for Internet Telephony Conference & Expo (http://www.itexp.com) Jan 23-27, 2007 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. Going forward, expect to see them focus on compatibility with more call control products as well as integrating their mobility offerings to enterprise IP PBXs. They will also have deeper feature sets, allowing cell phones and dual mode devices to have more PBX-like functionality.

Expect them to announce some new vendor partnerships very soon.

Speaking of ITEXPO, I happened to be looking at the SIP conference sessions coming up at the show this month as a guide to what the opportunities in SIP will be. I figured this was a great starting point for such an article as the conference sessions generally set the tone for the future of the industry. So here they are in all their glory...

There will be a load of SIP education in the SIP track. Sessions will focus on everything you may be interested in learning from an introductory course to the ever-so-hot SIP trunking space. In addition there will be a session on deploying SIP on a global scale, p2p SIP and early media’s effect on high volume applications.

For those who are interested there will be a full suite of IMS sessions at the collocated IMS Expo (http://www.imsexpo.com/). Sessions discussed in this conference will range from IMS billing to FMC and video.

In short, I am looking forward to an amazing 2007. I expect to see much innovation, more consolidation and a smattering of new “killer” must-have SIP applications permeating fixed, mobile telephony and the Internet. Keep your eyes peeled on your electronic and real mailboxes for future issues of SIP magazine, now in its second year — thanks to you and our advertisers.