Internet Telephony Conference and Expo

Category: VoIP

8:18 PM, Tue, Sep 11 2007

I met up with Patrick Campbell, of Systems in Despair, who flew down to Los Angeles specifically to attend this conference. We met up on Monday, just before the exhibits opened, and caught lectures from Mark Spencer, president of Digium, Inc., and Norman Stout, CEO of Inter-Tel, Incorporated. And then we saw hundreds of vendors in the exhibit.

Some background on me and VoIP: I've been interested in VoIP for a long time. I knew that it was going to change the world when latency and bandwidth crossed the threshold. Even before I got a chance to try VoIP developments, I followed with interest a digital voice encryption device made by Starium. This device held the promise of secure communications at affordable prices. It was digital, so converging with the then-new Internet would be a logical step. Unfortunately the Starium was always "just about" to be commercially available, and in the end, I don't believe any units were released before the company folded. This was a shame. Eric Blossom, the CTO of Starium, went on to work with GNU Radio, a software-based radio tuner. Again, a very exciting way to put the hardware world into software, enabling some very cool ways of communicating.

My first experience with real VoIP was with PGPfone secure phone software. I never got it to work at all. It has long-since been abandoned. Next I tried SpeakFreely softphone with its own protocol, and encryption. It was surprisingly capable for a one-man effort. It was easy to use and worked well. SpeakFreely is now also abandonware.

After SpeakFreely I tried Skype. Skype may have its risks and problems, but it certainly works. You install the software and you can start making calls. Unfortunately, Skype is not suitable as a business phone line or PBX. It is a consumer-to-consumer phone system.

Next I tried Vonage, and we used it as Chiral Software's main phone number. It was great. Easy to set up, good sound quality. Unfortunately, Vonage is dialtone provider, not a SIP provider. They merely use SIP to provide the dialtone. Their devices are locked, non-Vonage devices can't be used, and a soft PBX like Asterisk cannot be used directly. I'm not sure why their business model requires them to lock customers out of the SIP protocol, but it does. Vonage also could not use a softphone as the main phone line; instead you had to get a second line with per-minute charges to use a softphone. Not acceptable.

Next up was Broadvoice, which proudly offers a "BYOD" (Bring Your Own Device) option. That sounded like what I wanted. Broadvoice is a true SIP provider, not a dialtone provider that happens to use SIP, like Vonage, or a call provider that happens to use VoIP but not SIP, like Skype.

Upon signing up with Broadvoice, they sent us a UTStarcom F1000. This phone was truly abysmal. It did work, every once in a while. It spent most of its time in "downloading firmware" mode, not able to make or receive phone calls. But when it worked, it showed the promise of VoIP. I spent hours on the phone with Broadvoice, and finally sent them a letter saying, "you sent me a device that doesn't work. Make this work." To their credit they acknowledged that the device was problematic and immediately replaced the F1000, free of charge, with a Broadvoice-logo Sipura SPA-2100. I am impressed with BV's customer service. They always answer their support line quickly, and it's always someone knowledgeable. When you call our office line (310 356 7869) today, the call goes through the SPA-2100.

Meanwhile, on the softphone front, I tried KPhone, Linphone, and Xten-Lite, with little success. Xten-Lite was able to connect to Broadvoice and make one call; after that it had to be reset. I couldn't get any of the others to even connect. This was over a year ago, when Broadvoice connectivity was a new concern, so I would expect these softphones to work much more easily now.

That is my history with VoIP. On to the conference.

First, Mark Spencer's talk. Mark is the creator of the Asterisk open source VoIP software system. This piece of software is the basis for digium's commercial products, and several other companies' commercial products. He emphasized open source, its advantages, and some of the challenges of getting corporations to accept open source software for their essential business operations. Mark emphasized that Asterisk is a container for voice services, just like a web server is a container for web applications. You can write "CGIs" for Asterisk. In my mind, I was wondering, where are the SIPlets? If Servlets are the replacement for CGIs, SIPlets are the replacement for Asterisk applications. I didn't have a chance to ask.

Next, Norman Stout, CEO of Inter-Tel, gave a higher-level, less technical talk about the market and what it takes to succeed. He kept on emphasizing the importance of small and medium businesses (SMBs). "The growth in the American economy is in SMBs. They are operating more like large companies." He said, "techno-speak continues to bombard customers", and does not create distinctions. What does create distinctions is customer service. Techno-speak puts the emphasis on the technology, when in reality, customers are interested in results, not having the coolest new technology.

After Norman's talk, the exhibit hall opened.

Right near the entrance, I saw the ABP Tech booth, and met and talked with Jeff Ogden. ABP had some quite interesting devices, including the MOBOTIX Intelligent IP Cameras. However what was most interesting to me were their Aastra phones. Aastra was the only desktop phone vendor there that had a true SIP phone with a true cordless handset. I know that a few other companies are working on this, but Aastra had it for sale. It looked just like a commercial-grade office phone. The only indication that it is a SIP phone is that it plugs into Ethernet, not a phone connection. Jeff assured me that this phone works easily with Asterisk. I compared this with all the other handsets at the expo, and I decided that this was the phone we needed. Check an upcoming blog entry for my notes as I configure this phone to connect to Asterisk, which connects on to Broadvoice. I'll configure a dialplan with voicemail, extensions and dial by name.

I exchanged cards, and the next day I spoke with Norma at ABP Tech. Chiral Software is now a ABP Tech VAR and seller of Aastra SIP phones. More info on that, and what we can do with Asterisk, in upcoming blog entries, and a new SIP section of the website. I also acquired a Aastra 480i CT SIP phone, to replace my plain old cordless phone.

Next I met with Mark Spilotro, CEO of iKnowWare.com. iKnowWare makes an integrated message management system, which unifies voice, email and text messaging. I'll be contacting Mark to see if we may have an opportunity to work together on some software.

I also met Todd Landry, Senior Vice President of Sphere Communications Inc. Sphere is the vendor of a software voice application framework called Sphericall. Todd explained Sphericall to me. Sphericall lets developers create voice applications in much the same way JBoss Application Server lets Java developers create web and bean applications, without needing to worry about mechanics of how the services work. To be more concrete, all web applications require processing of HTTP, use of persistence (databases), handling configuration, and many other tasks. If a web developer had to handle these things directly, development would be impossibly slow, so we use containers, like JBoss Application Server, which handle all those concerns for us. We (developers) can focus 100% on the business problem, without worrying about the HTTP protocol and how a particular database works.

Voice applications have similar problems. The mechanics of dealing with SIP, and its partner RTP, and of dealing with handsets, extensions and messages, are a huge burden. Sphericall handles those things. The developer creates an application by making SOAP calls to the Sphericall server. These calls could ask the server, "is this phone off the hook" and "who is this user calling". The developer can also make SOAP calls with commands like "connect to this extension", "ring that line", or "conference these extensions". All modern development platforms have easy SOAP interfaces, so it sounds like Sphericall may be a great way to build a voice application, based on whatever the business need is.

There is a Sphericall SDK available for download so I'll definitely be trying that out.

It was exciting to see that VoIP has finally transitioned from experimentation to quotidian business use.