IP TELEPHONY: FAST FORWARD WITH MICHAEL KHALILIAN

International Packet Communications Consortium President Michael Khalilian spoke with Telephony's Kevin Fitchard about what the industry will see regarding the voice-over-IP sector in 2004.

On the evolution of the International Packet Communications Consortium: We started in 1996 as the IP Carrier Coalition, a separate service provider organization to investigate IP and its possible uses with voice. We started out with only a few carriers like Qwest, but soon we had all of the carriers on board. In 1998, Cisco asked that we open the door to vendors so we changed our name to the International Softswitch Consortium and began accepting vendors. Gradually it became apparent that softswitches were only one element in packet communications and we wanted to have a name that reflected the entire range of the packet voice industry, so in April of 2003 we changed our name once again to the International Packet Communications Consortium.

On the biggest challenge for carriers deploying packet-based networks: Interoperability. The carriers' networks are in bits and pieces. The challenge is to get those bits and pieces to work with one another. Not every SIP interfaces with every other SIP. There is no such thing as plug-and-play in this industry yet.

On the shift from core products to access products: There are more and more access products coming into the market as carriers are trying to get the most out of their new networks. The big challenge is ensuring that these new access products are equal to what we have now. Once people are comfortable that their new phones work just like the old ones, then we can start getting into the enhanced services. You'll see heavy integration of wireless and PDA into the traditional office networks. You'll have companies adding text to the standard phone offerings.

On circuit-to-packet migration: Voice over IP is the fancy new technology. Carriers still have a lot of questions about it. Are people making money on it? Are they getting returns on their investment? The answer is yes, but it's a gradual process. The carriers' philosophy has always been “if it isn't broken don't fix it.” So there isn't a rush to packetize all aspects of the network. What is driving migration is carriers' realization that they can profit from the next generation enhanced features that can only be offered over packet networks. A good analogy would be TV. We're in the black-and-white TV stage now. Carriers eventually want to get to high-definition TV, but first they deploy color TV.

On the transparency of packet networks to users: Consumers won't notice any difference. They will see more flexibility in their calling plans, but otherwise the transition will be invisible to them. Their services will become cheaper but remain just as reliable. Most of the consumer plans will be long-distance plans, meaning there will be no change in equipment at the user end. What they will notice is the handful of companies that start marketing flat rate long-distance plans for $10 a month. Businesses, on the other hand, will notice the difference. The carriers plan on introducing many enhanced services for business, all of which will be very apparent to the user.

On the potential for Class 5 replacement: They haven't made any announcements yet, but almost every carrier is in the evaluation stages. 90% of all carriers are transitioning to voice over packet in some part of their network. We will see a lot more announcements next year.