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A range of IP communications vendors and service providers are continuing an uphill battle to promote SIP trunking. The latest efforts include workshops and a forthcoming draft of an updated interoperability standard.
Ingate is leading the charge and has organized a free three-day workshop called "SIP Trunking: Everything You Need to Know" at the Internet Telephony Expo in Los Angeles next week. Partners in the effort include Avaya, BandTel, BroadSoft, Cbeyond, Digium and Voxitas. The three day program includes a track introducing the concept of SIP trunking, several case studies including one featuring support for "American Idol," and a day long "SIP Trunking Boot Camp" for interested parties.
"There's a tremendous amount of misunderstanding as to what [SIP trunking] exactly is," said Joel Maloff, senior vice president of marketing for BandTel. "SIP trunking as the name of a service isn't all that sexy. People are not familiar with it, they don't really know about the benefits... the major effort needed on our part is educational."
Later in September, the SIP Forum will sit down with Cable Labs and representatives of cable companies to hammer out a draft of SIPConnect 1.1 - the next standard for implementing trouble-free SIP trunking between IP communications software and hardware manufacturers and service providers.
SIPConnect 1.0, the existing standard, has helped a number of service providers identify interoperability problems, said SIP Forum managing director Marc Robins."There's a comprehensive survey that companies must fill out, they need to demonstrate that they're checking the right boxes. They have to stand up an actual demonstration, show that they're actually working with another company to do SIP trunking."
Robins expects a draft of SIPconnect 1.1 to be hashed out in the Cable Labs meeting and released in about "a month or so."
For more:
- Agenda for the three day SIP trunking seminar. Link.
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Comments
Posted by Marc Robins | September 11, 2008 - 12:58pm
Doug, thanks for including information about SIPconnect and the work the SIP Forum is doing re: the next version of the recommendation. I would like to offer some clarifications regarding some of what you wrote:
1. SIPconnect is not a standard, but rather an industry recommendation that builds on the standards work of the IETF and other standards bodies. It provides a set of rules and guidelines for accomplishing trouble-free SIP trunking.
2. The SIPconnect 1.1 meeting at CableLabs not only includes representatives from the cable industry, but also includes several other companies that have made major contributions to the effort, including Microsoft, Avaya, Broadsoft, Cbeyond, Microsoft and Siemens, as well as members of the SIP Forum Technical Working Group, which includes company representatives from a broad swath of the IP communications industry.
3. The survey you reference is part of the SIP Forum's SIPconnect Compliant Program. The Program is a vehicle through which eligible companies (companies that demonstrate compliance to the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation) can license the use of the SIP Forum's 'SIPconnect Compliant' certification mark to show the world that they are in fact adhering to the rules in the specification.
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