[Asterisk-Users] Spring VON Wrap Up

[Olle E. Johansson]

Steven Sokol wrote:
> Having just returned from four days at the VON show in Santa Clara, I
> thought I would submit a "highlights" message.  I hope others who attended
> the show will take the opportunity to add, as there was far more to see than
> I can cover on my own.
Thank you for a good report!
Comments inline:

> 1.  SIP.  Every presentation I saw mentioned SIP at some point.  While it
> has been obvious for some time that SIP is poised to become _the_ standard
> for telecom in the this century, the constant repetition is a good indicator
> that the standards wars are actually over and SIP stands as the survivor.
No one mentioned H.323 any more. It's SIP and only SIP.

> 2.  Presence.  Everybody wants to know when and where everybody is at all

> user wants to communicate at the time).  We need to add presence to
> Asterisk.  Now.
Right. In SIP and IAX2.
Maybe see if we can use Jabber/XMPP for IM integration.

> 3.  Asterisk.  While those of us in the Asterisk community have known for

> SIP Forge organization over an audio conference hosted on an Asterisk
> system.  Asterisk is definitely hot.
SIPfoundry.org - no source available yet. And yes, they showed a lot of
interest to cooperate with Digium and the asterisk.org community.

> 4. EoIP (Everything Over IP).  The lingo of the trade seems to be changing
> as things mature.  Voice is just one application among many.  Robert Pepper
> of the FCC described that agency's focus as moving to IP communications in
> general, rather than simply Voice.  This makes sense.  Voice really _is_
> just one of many modes of communication, and a long way away from the
> original VoIP service.

Asterisk SIP supports video now. We're a multimedia platform.


> 5. Regulatory Concerns.  Several of the presenters brought up social an
> legal issues related to VoIP, and the associated government regulations that
> follow.  E911 service and CALEA (wiretapping) were both the big concerns, as
> was inter-carrier compensation and taxation.  Dr. Pepper indicated that he
> was pleased with the direction that the VoIP market is going, in terms of
> the voluntary compliance with the relevant rules from the existing PSTN
> regs.  He indicated that the FCC was, for the time being, willing to
> regulate minimally -- following the same model used for the Wireless
> carriers over the past decade.
Members of the IETF added information on the to-be-standardized standard,
meaning that SIP with TLS over TCP will be mandatory. We need to start working
on TCP and TLS support.

> [Asterisk Get-Together]
> About 25 of us (I think) gathered at the Mexicali Grill in Santa Clara for a
> post-show celebration and discussion.  It was a BLAST.  Even as tired as
> most of us were (four days of trade show can wear down just about anybody)
> we all had a great time.  It was cool to be able to put faces with
> names/email addresses.  I think Olle Johansson took pictures of the event.
> They may already be on the WiKi in fact.  
Not yet, but I'm working on getting them uploaded. Still trying to get
accustomed to the cold weather and strange time zone up here in the north.

Thank you Steve for organizing this meeting!



/Olle