VIDEO VEXATIONS

The cost and connectivity advantages of running data across Internet protocol-based networks have long been evident to business and residential customers alike. Now, given the rapid development of the H.323 standard and the emergence of IP telephony, customers are anxious to get the same advantages by moving some of their voice traffic out of the circuit-switched world and into the IP arena. Therefore, logic dictates that business organizations are-or soon will be-knocking at the IP door with their video traffic as well.

Certainly more vendors are shipping H.323-compliant equipment, enabling carriers and customers to bridge circuit-switched and packet-switched networks for both voice and video traffic. Yet, has the H.323 standard-and associated equipment-evolved sufficiently to allow carriers to package IP telephony and videoconferencing for large-volume business organizations? If so, how will those bundled IP voice and video services affect existing corporate investments in ISDN H.320-based videoconferencing systems?

H.320 TO H.323 IS A GIVEN Some industry players say the second question is simply not an issue. Customers wanting to adopt IP videoconferencing won't strand their investments in the H.320-based systems, simply because any barriers between the two types have long since been knocked over. In fact, solving interoperability issues between legacy 320 systems and 323 multimedia systems is "a slam-dunk, a no-brainer," says Michelle Blank, president of RADVision. "I'm almost willing to say that today there are no interoperability problems."

RADVision, based in Mahwah, N.J., develops hardware and software for multimedia communications and network infrastructures. The company's H.323 protocol stack is one of the interfaces vendors use in developing H.320-to-H.323 gateways.

Christine Perey, head of Perey Research and Consulting, a Placerville, Calif., firm that specializes in multimedia networking, agrees with Blank. "Every system that is shipping today for 320-based video communications has some type of provisioning for 323 support," Perey says. "They can use some type of transcoding or network interface device to translate between these protocols."

Such interface options are available not only with hardware but also with software that originated in the H.320 world. Many firms now have H.323 versions of their programs on the market. For example, Peg Landry, director of marketing for White Pine Software in Nashua, N.H., says her company has had 323-compliant software in the market for more than a year.

Even so, she points out that many corporate customers aren't all that concerned about 320-to-323 interoperability. Customers may say on paper that it's important, but Landry has not seen much overlap.

"I think customers put [interoperability] into their list of requirements, but when it comes to actual implementation, we've seen them move toward straight H.323 systems. They may have some level of 320 out there, but they're supplementing that with 323 systems. The demand to bridge the two really hasn't been there," Landry says.

Corporate customers with ISDN H.320 videoconferencing systems can migrate smoothly to the IP H.323 environment-and RADVision's Blank argues there are some compelling reasons for doing so. To her, "videoconferencing" automatically implies legacy 320-based systems, and those simply are "a proof of concept," she says.

In fact, Blank argues that the legacy videoconferencing market actually serves as the enabling technology for this next generation of multimedia communications. To add more value to those 320 systems, they need to be brought into the IP world.

That's where RADVision's Video Interface Unit (VIU), a single-port 320/323 gateway, comes in. A terminal adapter that enables users to unplug legacy systems from an ISDN line and plug into a VIU connected the IP network.

MORE VALUE FOR YOUR VIDEO Getting more value from their video communications capabilities is a big driver for many business users, says White Pine's Landry. Companies looking to expand their video applications are running up against the costs associated with their ISDN 320 video systems. They don't want to be forced into buying expensive ISDN lines, Landry says, and many no longer can afford to confine their video communications exclusively to the LAN. Consequently, they are moving toward IP 323-based video communications.

"They want to do things like collaborate with their partners and suppliers to market to a broader customer base, to keep track of their remote sales force," she says. "That requires a more extensive network, which companies today haven't been able to deploy with ISDN. Also, the systems based on ISDN are fairly complicated."

Perey says a lot of that complexity stems from the fact that the intelligence underlying the application typically resides in the PBXs communicating with the network. Thus, users at the endpoints are fairly restricted in what they can do. As corporations seek to expand their video applications beyond the LAN, they will not tolerate such restrictions.

"Take, for example, initiating a multipoint conferencing session from within their endpoints. That can be done in the telephony world, right? Just hit the conference button," she says. "But in ISDN 320 systems, that happens somewhere else in the network-it can't happen out there at the endpoint."

The evolution of videoconferencing has had a lot of circuit-switched networking, Perey says. "It now is enjoying and benefiting from the introduction of an IP environment."

CARRIER STRATEGIES If more customers want IP videoconferencing over the WAN and their investments in 320 video systems are protected, what are carriers doing to satisfy these corporate requirements? Plus, back to the original question-is the H.323 standard far enough along so that carriers can be assured of multivendor interoperability for the underlying equipment?

For the moment at least, ITXC Corp. and Qwest Communications International have very different perspectives on the IP video marketplace and, as a result, very different strategies. Mary Evslin, vice president of marketing at ITXC, says her company is now, and will be for the next several months, focusing on the market for pure, low-cost IP telephony.

"Now the telcos want high-margin, high-end products that can differentiate them in the marketplace," she says. "That's the business-development guys talking. But the technology types know that [bundled IP telephony/video services] are not really possible yet. The technology and the market are just not there yet."

As a result, Ed Hirschman, ITXC's senior product line manager, says IP video does not rank as high on the carrier's priority list as other things do, at least not right now. Instead, ITXC is working with its carrier customers "to ramp up IP telephony traffic very quickly."

"Right now, we're building a network that's going to be able to support any IP service, including video," he says, adding that ITXC's effort goes beyond infrastructure issues to include operational expertise, "or learning how to excel in the IP space, regardless of what's in the packets."

Evslin adds that the market for such bundled services probably won't emerge for "at least another 10 months or so, not until the Qwest and the Level 3 types get the bandwidth in place."

In fact, Qwest Communications International is at the opposite end of the bundled IP services spectrum from ITXC. Company executives say the market does exist for packaged IP voice and video services, and Qwest is gearing up to offer them. Last December, the Denver-based carrier announced a strategic relationship with Microsoft Corp. through which the two companies will offer corporate customers an array of advanced, IP-based services, including "streaming media."

According to the joint announcement, this type of service focuses on "a scalable, on-demand... distribution of images to single and multiple locations to support videoconferencing, PC-to-PC conferencing and video distribution services."

But Greg Bell, Qwest's vice president of business development and strategic alliances, emphasizes that the Qwest/

Microsoft strategy is not one of offering bundles of discrete services, such as IP telephony and IP videoconferencing. Instead, the plan is to develop and roll out "business multimedia communications."

This means more than videoconferencing. "The real demand out there isn't for IP videoconferencing-the demand is for people to be able to communicate visually," he says. "What people really are after is an easy-to-use application. They want to be able to sit at their desks, make a phone call, [send a] fax, and click a button and do a video call-at a quality level that's acceptable to them."

Bell adds that "the new multimedia stuff" simply begins with H.323 multipoint videoconferencing but expands to encompass IP-based video-on-demand delivered on a multicast or broadcast basis.

"What we're really doing is developing an end-to-end solution for which corporations can sign up on a service level for a multiple range of products," Bell says, "from Web hosting to dial-up networks for running their IP traffic. And part of that will be a solution for business multimedia communications."

Customers can expect to see the first elements of this broad solution during the second half of the year, Bell says.

As for the question of multivendor equipment interoperability, Bell is not worried. The H.323 standard is "sufficiently ready" to support carrier initiatives, he says.

RADVision's Blank agrees with that assessment.

"The technology is proven and has gotten to a point where it works," she says. "Can we today say without thinking that we can ensure end-to-end interoperability with any and every 323-compliant product that is introduced to the marketplace? As of today, the answer is no. However, can we deliver end-to-end interoperability with multivendor products today? The answer is yes."

The only interoperability issues within H.323, Blank says, are the usual ones-variations in vendor implementations of the standard and "vendor idiosyncrasies," in which some vendors decide to implement things that are not defined in the standard. Such issues, she says, never go away completely.

"You're always going to require conscious effort, energy, resources and time to achieve interoperability because of the very nature of a hybrid network-'hybrid' meaning circuit-switched vs. IP, plain telephone vs. laptop computer, LAN vs. WAN.

"The vision is having an end-to-end multimedia communications network is what this is all about, building a network that is able to support streams of voice, video and data across the world to people connecting with different devices," Blank says. "We will always have to work at trying to bridge these different worlds. No one company can have the depth of expertise in all the areas that you need."

Perey says any carrier's level of confidence in H.323 equipment interoperability likely depends on several factors, includingthe size of the network, the complexity of potential customers' needs and the level of IP voice/video services a carrier may want to offer.

Carrier confidence in H.323 also depends, she says, "on its corporate vision, on the levels of investment that are possible for that carrier. I wouldn't risk the farm on H.323 as it stands today-but I sure would risk a cow. The companies that get in early-have more scars and survive those scars-will have more opportunity for revenues."