* Reader questions why IP telephony vendors tout proprietary protocols
This week, we’d like to turn our focus to several observations and questions that one of our readers has forwarded. He works as a network and development assistant for a major university, and has been following the growth of VoIP and open source telephony for several years.
Our reader writes: “As convergence and IP telephony become more and more popular, I’ve noticed everything but convergence when it comes to the core protocols behind many vendors’ communications servers. I feel that proprietary technologies such as Cisco’s SCCP [Signalling Connection Control Part] (skinny) protocol for communications between their CallManager servers and IP endpoints, and Nortel’s UNISTIM [Unified Network Stimulus] protocol are building barriers, not breaking them down. In my opinion, the world of IP telephony has become increasingly divergent instead of convergent.”
Our reader has been involved with the testing and implementation of open source PBXs like Asterisk for about six months, and he notes that “in order for different brands and types of IP communications devices to co-exist on the same network, the communications world needs to agree on one, or a small set of core IP communications protocols.”
In his experience, he cites three major vendors that don’t seem to agree on a common, cost-effective set of VoIP protocols. For example in his experience “Cisco offers their 7900 series IP endpoints, yet [Cisco] only distributes SIP firmware to service contract holders at a price of around $80 per phone, not including the $300 phone [or the costs associated with] the service contact.
He contends that, “Nortel does not support SIP at all, sticking to their proprietary UNISTIM protocol. The hardware units themselves are engineered very well, but [the] lack of a standard protocol support such as SIP makes them unusable on any platform other than Nortel’s.”
On a more positive note, he’s been advised that, “Avaya is currently working on a SIP-compliant endpoint program as well as a project to implement SIP into their communications servers.”
Bottom line: the reader wants to know if “companies such as Avaya, Nortel, and Cisco [will] continue to tout their own proprietary technologies to ensure that their clients remain with them for any future telecom upgrades.”
Next time, we’ll add our observations and next week, we’ll get replies directly from the vendors to address our reader’s concerns.
