Spring VON 2004 - produced by pulver.com

The First VON Conference
In September 1996, Jeff Pulver, who had been active in the burgeoning exploration of voice transmission on the Internet, organized the very first Internet telephony conference at the Puck building in New York City. Attendees included VocalTec, whose InternetPhone product marked the onset of the IP (Internet Protocol) Telephony revolution, as well as Clarent (then known as Netiphone), iBasis (then known as ChipChat) and Deltathree. At the time, Jeff was also involved in a project called Free World Dialup, which sought to make long-distance calls free. It used the Internet phone technology to connect the equivalent of two local calls. Little did he realize what was to come. In spring 1997, the first Voice On the Net(sm) (VON) Conference was held at the Ritz-Carlton in San Francisco.

VON Conferences Today
Today, expected attendance at the United States VON's, held in the fall and spring, reaches over 2,000. A smaller VON is held in Europe each summer as well. Attendees include leading technologists and business people from major telephone and networking companies, as well as small Internet start-ups. Hundreds of speakers and exhibitors complement registered delegates to establish a vibrant atmosphere of networking and learning. Jeff proudly proclaims a zero "walking-dead" index — in other words, everybody you encounter will be a potential supplier, customer, partner, or competitor. This is a focused industry conference, not a flashy show for disinterested outsiders.

Sessions and Exhibits
The conference begins with pre-conference workshops, which are crash courses in topics from companies working in a given field — past topics have included billing, the experiences of telephone companies, even an introduction to the basic ideas of IP telephony itself. The following day, Jeff gives his perspective on the state of the industry, gleaned from discussions with high-level executives at various companies, and his own experiences and perceptions. A variety of keynote speakers then provide industry perspectives. Interspersed with the industry perspectives are breakout sessions, which focus on a variety of particular aspects of VON that may be of interest to a given attendee. A panel of presenters will discuss anything from web voice portals to SIP. During breaks, delegates are encouraged to visit the exhibit hall, which features exhibits from companies showing off their latest gear; the demonstrations show remarkable progress from conference to conference. One night of the conference, Birds of a Feather (BoF) sessions provide moderated discussions of emerging VON topics, serving as a gathering point for attendees with mutual interest, giving them a chance to learn from one another.

Building Connections
Meeting the right people is a key aspect of VON. The delegates and the speakers at the conference are from leading companies, making it a prime networking opportunity. The speakers are readily accessible, even Jeff. To faciliate interaction, the conference price includes a full lunch for each day of the conference and an extensive reception one of the evenings provide chances to introduce yourself to a representative from a company you may not have even realized existed. It could be just the big deal you were looking for. Frequent breaks between sessions provide opportunities to meet fellow delegates and discuss topics from sessions just attended. The VON conferences even feature a party with a well-known band. Delegates can network over a few drinks in an atmosphere of fun. After all, changing the way phone calls are sent is exciting — why shouldn't the conference be?

What the heck is a PSTN?
As with any industry reaching maturing, acronyms and jargon are abundant in the land of VON (which, in case you forgot, is Voice On the Net). Even the session titles can be daunting. Here's a quick guide to get you started, though we recommend attending a VON Introduction pre-conference workshop to get a better flavor.

A PSTN is actually a Public Switched Telephone Network. It's the old way of sending phone calls. And although enhanced by modern innovations, there are limits on the quality of PSTN phone calls, the number of phone calls that can be carried in a certain amount of bandwidth, and the number of features that can be offered. Thanks to the growing ubiquity of Internet Protocol, the method of communication between computers which underlies the Internet, sending phone calls using a protocol that runs on top of IP allows for convergence. In such a scenario, web and chat tools are seamlessly integrated with phone calls, which can themselves be routed to cell phones or computers or corporate phone networks with ease. It has not yet been decided whether it is possible to reliably send phone calls over the open Internet or whether it is better to create private IP networks to send them.

In changing the way phone calls are sent, the vast size and complexity of the existing phone network becomes more clear, and it is all the more astounding how reliable the existing system is. To match this reliability and functionality, a great deal of work is being done on not just transmitting voice with good Quality of Service (QoS), but in the complex task of routing telephone calls to their destination, and signaling what is going on during a phone call (phone's ringing, phone's off the hook, etc.). Also, to allow leveraging of existing legacy network infrastructure, it is necessary to construct gateways to link PSTN and IP. Such gateways are also needed to link differing signaling protocols or networks, or even to monitor single-protocol calls. Gateways are overseen by gatekeepers, which can route incoming and outgoing calls and provide information to or extract information from the gateways. To allow gateways to find one another, the same sorts of switches that frequent various other networks must be present on an IP voice network. When such switches consist of line interface cards on a computer instead of a dedicated piece of hardware, it is called a softswitch.

The protocols vying to control signaling at the moment are Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), H.323, and Megaco/Media Gateway Control Protocol (MGCP). Each offers different degrees of speed, flexibility and ease, and the winner has yet to be determined. These protocols will have to interoperate with existing PSTN systems, including SS7 signaling, which allows for things like Local Number Portability and 800-number lookup. For Telephone Routing over IP (TRIP), a network of servers can be created to find the appropriate networks at the lowest cost for call transmission. An IETF group called ENUM is working to create a better phone number system for IP phone systems.

In addition, the wireless world has its own set of protocols. Although Europeans are using GSM, the United States using CDMA and TDMA to transmit voice. Additionally, although Europeans are heavy users of Short Messaging Service (SMS), it has yet to catch on in the states. However, all bets are off now with a new generation of wireless protocols. Wireless Access Protocol (WAP) purports to offer the benefits of web access, but Third Generation Wireless (3G) will have its own set of considerations. Meanwhile, the Bluetooth wireless protocols allows small devices to communicate with other Bluetooth-enabled devices in their proximity.

The world of billing and monitoring must also be reevaluated. Simple Network Monitoring Protcol (SNMP) allows devices to report back on their status, but the development of Call Data Records (CDRs) is still underway. Network management is also contingent on Intelligent Networking (IN) which enables more flexible network resource allocation and tracking. QoS can be measued by using criteria such as latency, jitter and dropped packets, but it also can be testing using methods such as Perceptual Speech Quality Measurement (PSQM). Although most media streams are Real Time Protocol as negotiated by Session Description Protocol with G.711 encoding, work is being done to find a better codec for speech.

The issues are different for different players There are the Competitive Local Exchange Carriers (CLECs), who provide the local loop through copper into houses and businesses. They may need to provide IP services to compete with phone services from broadband cable, satellite, DSL and fixed wireless Internet and phone providers. There are also the Internet Service Providers (ISPs), who have to contend with voice traffic coming over their networks, and who may choose to branch out into being an Internet Telephony Service Provider (ITSP). Internet Telephony eXchange Carriers (ITXCs) and NextGen Telcos offer larger-scale IP networks, perhaps managing IP backbones that interconnect with the PSTN. Clearinghouses and brokerages are places for those with limited Points of Presence (POPs) to arrange deals to terminate/egress traffic that their own network cannot handle.

Of course, what matters in the end are services and functionality for the end user. In the cases where the end user is an enterprise, it is important to try to match the functionality they receive from their existing PBX systems. This can be mimicked by iPBX's or by off-site Centrex's. For the development of other applications, Application Service Providers (ASPs) are springing up who will manage complete applications for IP telephony users. However, to create applications efficiently, it will be necessary to create a set of Application Programming Interfaces (APIs) to help software talk to hardware, not just in telephony itself, but also in the related fields of directories and instant messaging. Although the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) is a beginning of a solution, it will take something like the in-development Instant Messaging and Presence Protocol (IMPP) to link directories to real human voice interactions.