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2. The Next Wave of
Communications Applications
Dr. Cullen Jennings
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3. What I’m Going to Tell You
 Where the expenses are in deploying a large VoIP or
collaboration system
 How the industry has systematically driven some of
these costs towards zero
 What parts will be driven to zero next
If you are a vendor, this will be either good news or bad news
for you
If you are a user, this will be good news for you
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5. Major Expenses
 Endpoints
Hardware: LCD, CPU, Memory, Plastics, Power
Software: SIP, CODECs, OS, Security, GUI & Application
 Service
Soft Switches, Servers, & Operations
User Support
 PSTN Connectivity
 Phone Numbers
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6. Major Expenses
 Endpoints
Hardware: LCD, CPU, Memory, Plastics, Power
Software: SIP, CODECs, OS, Security, GUI & Application
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7. Major Expenses
 Service
Soft Switches
Servers
Operations
User Support
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8. Major Expenses
 PSTN Connectivity
 Phone Numbers
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9. Commoditization of Support
 Support
Better software
Worse support builds better users
User based support forums
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10. Support in 2001
Credit for slide to Dr. Moshe Yudkowsky
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11. Support in 2009
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12. Reduced Support via Better Software
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13. Commoditization of Hardware
 Hardware
Moore’s law
Adjacent market volume
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14. Commoditization of Software
 pen source
O
OS: Linux
SIP: Vovida.org, resiprocate.org
Security: openssl, libSRTP
GUI: Still a bunch of work but spread over
larger volume
CODECs:
Were expensive
Now more expensive due to wideband audio
and video
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15. Central Servers & Soft Switches
 Distributed Hash Tables (DHT) allowed construction of
large robust distributed data bases
most fundamental advance in data structures in 20 years
 Skype led the way
Very low operational expense compared to competition
 Simple strategy, move the computing to the edge
Reduce cost of servers, data centers, and people to run them
Note this is the opposite of cloud computing
Alice
 Vendors working on standardized approach B
Happening at IETF P2PSIP working group C
Doug
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16. Phone Numbers
 Artificial scarcity
 Theory: Public ENUM
Uses DNS as database so you can point your phone number
where you want it to go
 Practice: Infrastructure ENUM
Uses DNS as database so the phone company can point your
number where they want it to go
 Score: Telcos 1, Internet 0
 Implication: VoIP has all the limitations of the PSTN
 Big Question: How to rescue your phone number from
being held hostage?
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17. Phone Numbers
 Theory: Public ENUM
Uses DNS as database so you can point your phone number
where you want it to go
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18. Phone Numbers
 Practice: Infrastructure ENUM
Uses DNS as database so the phone company can point your
number where they want it to go
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19. CODECs & GUIs
 Problem: Free software (think Skype, Webex, or
Firefox) can’t practically contain CODECs that are not
royalty free
 Narrowband Audio
iLBC (RFC 3951) reasonable solution
 Wideband: Nothing both standard and good
SILK, CELT (Successor to Speex & Ogg Vorbis)
 Video
Theora
 Royalty Free CODECS will enable media in HTML
Ease the creation of flexible GUI based on web mashups 19

20. IETF CODEC BOF
 IETF is considering forming a working group to develop
CODECs with goal of being royalty free
 Facing significant opposition from current holders of
CODEC patents
 Significant desire to do it from large users of CODECs
in internet software clients
 Call to Action:
Go tell the IETF the internet needs royalty free CODECs and
the IETF is the right standards development organization to do
this
Send email to codec@ietf.org 20

21. IETF CODEC BOF
Send email to codec@ietf.org
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22. The Future
 The internet will move to royalty free CODECs
 People will steal their phone numbers back
 DHT Technology will become increasingly common
 100% of commercial communications products will
incorporate substantial open source
 Do It Yourself Tech support will get better. All other
types will get worse
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23. Questions
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