As part of the Network World VoIP Tech Update seminar series, we gather questions during the day for the panel. At the end of the day, we choose a " Best Question, " and the person who asked it wins a cash prize.
In the first two sessions, we received a lot of great questions. Since the panelists represented IP PBX vendors, LAN infrastructure vendors, and test and measurement vendors, the answers were skewed in those directions. So, the really good questions concerning WAN infrastructure were not addressed by the panelists.
One of these WAN questions was, " Will there ever be another service level, potentially at a premium or higher cost, from Internet or VPN providers, which could allow for better QoS across the Internet? For instance, there could be two types of service - basic Internet and QoS Internet. "
Interestingly, this is a situation that is already being addressed by several service providers, although it is being seen more in IP VPN services than in the Internet. (By definition, Internet services are best effort only.)
On the commercial side, Sprint offers an enhanced frame relay service (called IP Express) by which you can mark VoIP packets in the Differentiated Services field and the packets receive priority queuing all the way through the network.
Multi-protocol Label Switching-based VPN provider Masergy offers an enhanced class of service for real-time voice and video - for which you pay a premium.
Virtela, a service provider that offers a network-based VPN service based on a backbone from several ISPs, also has a special offering for VoIP.
RELATED LINKS
IP telephony talk zeroes in on SIP
Network World, 04/15/02
Convergence in action
Network World, 04/15/02
Steve Taylor is President of Distributed Networking Associates and Publisher/Editor-in-Chief of Webtorials.Com. For more detailed information on most of the topics discussed in this newsletter, connect to Webtorials.Com, the first Web site dedicated exclusively to market studies and technology tutorials in the Broadband Packet areas of Frame Relay, ATM, and IP.
Larry Hettick is an independent consultant, with 19 years of experience in telecommunications and data communications marketing and product management for service providers and equipment vendors. He can be reached at larry@larryhettick.com
You can reach the authors at taylor@webtorials.com or larry@larryhettick.com.
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