Voip and web phone connection

What is the current state of VoIP technology? Where is it headed? Who will emerge as winners and losers? What role will regulators play?

These were among the questions a distinguished panel of telecom executives examined several weeks ago when America's Network sponsored its first VoIP industry summit in the Washington, D.C. law offices of Swidler Berlin Shereff Friedman. The freewheeling, roundtable discussion was directed by William Wilhelm, a telecom law expert with the firm. The discussion was co-chaired by Al Senia, the managing editor of America's Network.

The VoIP roundtable lasted more than two hours. Edited excerpts of the questions and answers follow. A fuller, more detailed discussion is available at America's Network Web site (www.americasnetwork.com).

Q: What kind of features are VoIP users most interested in?

DONDERO: We've done research on that with enterprises and consumers. We did it a few years ago and we're just redoing it now. So features like video calling among consumers. We were quite pleasantly surprised, frankly. We saw a significant interest in that sort of communication. The ability to manage call lists, control your calling, route your calls to your cell phone and provision that in real time.

In a collaborative environment, things like video chat, teen chat lines. We really do see a lot of interest in that. And in Asia Pacific markets where video is dominant, (there's) a lot of interest in those sorts of technologies there.

ATTWOOD: SBC is, in fact, in the business market now, the small-medium business markets, selling precisely those mobility applications, collaborative applications, personal productivity enhancements.

But I'd also say one of the great things about the IP platform is that, in fact, as new applications come online, the incremental ability of the end-user, the customer, to customize that service, to add a feature, is really what distinguishes this kind of service from some of the traditional services. The customer is able to customize what they need, their communications needs.

SORGI: I think one thing that's incredibly important is not to tie customers to one provider, but to let customers not just add whatever features I might offer them, but to pick and choose who they want for their ISP, who they want for their broadband connection. Until we liberate consumers in that way, we're not going to have the explosion, even with what may be a killer Voice over IP. We're not going to have the explosion that I think people are hoping for. We need consumer choice to be maximized. And that's not happening now.

CARLISLE: Well, the other trend that we're seeing is the development of incredible end-user technology consumer premises equipment that is (not) going to drive deployment of facilities, but also is going to going to drive a take rate for both broadband and these services.

CITRON: I think people are starting to see here, with applications, really two kind of discrete sets. There's Voice over IP applications that are truly applications having nothing to do with replacing your phone service, and there's Voice over IP applications to replace your phone service. And I want to be mindful that they are separate.

Q: How do you expect VoIP technology to evolve?

DONDERO: We see immense opportunity out there and very much agree with the notion of the creation of a wide variety of new innovative service, which will create new forms of bundling. We're certainly starting to see that emerge right now over broadband, new services that we can't imagine: triple-play bundles, quadruple-play bundles that are based on VoIP.

The whole notion of openness, as well, the ability of third-party application developers to create and write wholly new applications--again, things we haven't dreamed of yet--certainly is going to be significant for the industry, for consumers and business alike. So it's a great opportunity.

ATTWOOD: The (Federal Communications) Commission and SBC as well have identified this as really an IP issue, not (just) VoIP. Service is one piece of it, but the services and applications are really IP-enabled services. And that's what the promise is.

SORGI: The new thing here isn't voice over IP. That's been around for a while. The new thing is broadband enabling of this application. And so for us, and I think for most of us who are in this world and will be in it more, it's the FCC's job, regulator's job, is to make sure that broadband is open and that all comers can get it and compete on it. And so it's about the access layer, distinct from the application. I think the buzz around VoIP has been around the application. But the real interest here is the broadband world that we're all in.

Q: Will there be an open set of standards so that third parties can interface or plug in their applications to providers?

DONDERO: That's happening today with the SIP protocol. That's been embraced as the protocol of choice for multimedia applications. And you see Microsoft adopting that for new versions of XP and other applications, and just a whole slew of application providers emerging embracing that technology, which really fundamentally enables these new multimedia services and peer communications and the ability to run multiple devices at the same time and things like that.

So that absolutely is happening today, and we support that effort and that movement.

Q: Is VoIP over-hyped? Is it awaiting some killer app for widespread adoption?

CITRON: I don't think it's an "if" anymore. It's clearly a "when." And in the case of basic IP connectivity and solutions, it's really happening already. There is no hype. I mean, Vonage is out there, we're signing up a lot of people. Our sales rates are growing very quickly.

But there are these really cool advanced applications like video, which are probably still some time off. And the video is something that probably is a lot more hype than reality because the realities are, many people in this country can't get enough bandwidth to make video telephony work. A lot of people in this country can't get broadband alone. They don't even have enough bandwidth. And the cost of buying these devices are still cost prohibitive.

DONDERO: I think there's a lot of confusion certainly in the marketplace about what VoIP is. There's a perception that it's all voice over the internet as opposed to voice over managed IP network, which is what a lot of the larger carriers are rolling out, with the reliability and security that consumers and businesses expect and a lot will insist upon. And that absolutely is happening as well.

ATTWOOD: At SBC, for example, we have a world-class voice network for our mass-market customers. And thus far we haven't seen the business case to move into the mass market because of the issues that a residential customer, for example, their reliability questions are still being worked through, the questions about emergency preparedness are still being worked through.

We're certainly seeing it in the business market because those are where the applications and the customers are demanding kind of higher applications and service enhancements that an IP network can make.

Q: What are the major constraints to VoIP adoption?

SORGI: I think the constraint on Voice over IP really proliferating will be the constraint on broadband being an accessible platform that all competitors can have access to. The Bells obviously want to conflate. They want to attach their ISP and their broadband services to their network and deny all comers access to their network.

We prefer a different model, obviously, where all comers have access to their network at fair prices and the applications are unregulated. If that doesn't happen, then you will end up with a duopoly offering broadband, and most people can't even access the duopoly at the residence/small-business, and that's not very interesting. And the prices will never come down to the level that a competitive market could drive them to to make adoption widespread.

CARLISLE: Well, what I'd like to do is address your original question about hype. I think we're a cynical society now having seen the Internet bubble come and go and sort of seeing people make incredible claims about how technology was all of a sudden going to change our lives. And we didn't get the videophones or flying cars or anything like that, and we're very cynical about these claims....

I think VoIP ... is a technology that is going to change the way people communicate. It will be a gradual change, it will take place over time. It will be subject to diffusion across the country. But essentially it's going to take the decisions about the services that I have and put it in my hands rather than in the hands of a centralized bureaucracy. And it will give me an ability to have those choices follow me around wherever I happen to be on the network. That's really powerful.