Jon "maddog" Hall: Open Telephony

Open Telephony: Freedom
Greater Than A Sum Of Its Parts

By
Jon “maddog” Hall
Linux International

Copyright Linux International 2009

Just For Fun

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WGjzm6hzXaA


Needed For Telephony: Then


Needed For Telephony Later...


The “Telephone Company”

Not a total monopoly....but almost
●

They owned everything
●

The phones
–

The telephone lines
–

The switching equipment
–

The long distance lines
–

The employees
–

You
–


Along The Way:
Trouble In River City


And Even More Trouble


And Lots Of Trouble


Choice....

....but no control
Choose long distance carrier
●

Choose handset
●

Choose cellphone carrier
●

Choose PBX supplier
●

but you could not open any box


Then One Day....
...SIP Happens!
VoIP!
●

Talking over the Internet!
●


VoIP

IP – already digital, packet switched
●

network
VoIP – transform voice to digital packets
●

and transmit them via IP
Quality of Service (QoS)
●

packet
–

loss
●

delay
●

re-transmission
●


Types of VoIP

Direct
●

Hardware VoIP phone to other VoIP device
–

Software VoIP phone to other VoIP device
–

Indirect
●

VoIP device to PBX “server”
–

PBX provides services and/or converts to POTS
●


And More Phones Appeared...


But They Were Still Closed


There Were A Few Softphones


Even Some Of Them Were
Closed....


What Is WRONG With “Closed”?

Supplier goes out of business
●

Supplier “loses interest”
●

Retires product line
–

Merges products
–

Bug fxes - “Its really a computer”!
●

Upgrades
●

Migrating data from one phone to
●

another


Choice, But Only Their Choices

Upgrading hardware may mean
●

software change
May have to pay for ISP you do not use
●

Limited number of plans
●

No real freedom
●


PBX

Large companies used lots of telephone
●

lines to CO
10 to 1 rule
–

2000 employees, 200 talking on phone
●

lots of calls inside business
–

Switchboard “CO” inside of business
●

Few lines to outside
–


Services

Digital switching ofered services
●

Voice mail
–

Caller ID
–

Call forwarding
–

etc.
–

Ofered by CO – Centrex
●

Ofered by in-house PBX
●

All of this is POTS – Plain Old Telephone Service


Dialing Plan

“Please Dial 9.....”


For a Long Time:
Closed, Proprietary, EXPENSIVE


Then, A Major Step Forward!


Open PBX:
Asterisk
Open Source Software
●

Runs on Linux, BSD, etc.
–

Allows better integration to company
–
software
Support of diferent hardware
●

interfaces (T1, E1, FXO/FXS, more)


Open PBX:
Asterisk (Cont.)
PBX (including long distance Gateway)
●

Call Parking/Forwarding/Waiting, etc.
●

Music to hold by
●

Voicemail Services with Directory
●

Conferencing Server
●

Packet Voice Server
●

Encryption of Telephone of Fax Calls
●

Custom Interactive Voice Response
●

Number Translation
●

VoIP with diferent protocols (H.323, SIP, IAX, etc.)
●


Scenarios

“Free” portals to other countries
●

Saving money calling from other
●

countries
One customer, ten salespeople
●

Blending of Telephony and “rest of IT”
●


Advantages: Not Just Saving
Money
Avoid “Fork Lift Upgrades”
●

Better integration to rest of systems
●


Mexico City

“Senior Hall, I have done it!”


Open Source As Solutions:
Additional Advantages
Less reliance on one vendor
●

Less reliance on ANY vendor
●

Distributed risk
●

low cost allows more redundancy
–

Lower cost hardware
●

Standard hardware
●


Intermixing of Technologies

Now it is all “IP”
●

Audio
–

Video
–

Metadata
–

Mixing “data” and “control”
●

What if we did not use telephony to bring
communications.....


Intermixing of Technologies

Now it is all “IP”
●

Audio
–

Video
–

Metadata
–

Mixing “data” and “control”
●

What if we did not use telephony to bring
communications.....
..what if the phone was really a
computer?

What If The Handset Was Really
Open?


What Does It Mean For Hardware
To Be “Open”?
Published APIs to the hardware
●

Published CAD drawings for case
●

Published schematics and component
●

layout for the Printed Circuit Board
Open development forums
●


Control = Choice

Choice of operating system
●

Qt Extended
–

OpenMoko (OM)
–

Debian
–

Android
–

Others
–

Choice of transmission
●

GSM
–

WiFi
–

Control (Cont.)

Choice of Carrier
●

Choice of ISP
●

Choice of Services
●

Choice of Support
●

Choice of PBX services
●

Choice of when to upgrade
●

Future choice of handset designs
●


Beware “Partially Open”

Does the software have to be “signed”?
●

Is the carrier “locked”?
●

Unlock the phone?
●

Will you get updates?
–

Will you get security patches?
–

Does the vendor limit the applications?
●

Remove WiFi clients?
–

Remove other applications?
–

Not publish all the source code?
–

Sometimes...

“It is better to be completely closed than partially
open...”
- Jon “maddog” Hall, 1995


Control

From Handset to Datacenter


Sources Of Information:
Companies
Digium - www.digium.com
●

Openmoko - www.openmoko.org
●

Koolu - www.koolu.com
●

Videos - http://www.youtube.com/user/openkoolu
●


Questions?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9dVch2nSuBA


Jon "maddog" Hall: Open Telephony

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