* Readers weigh in on importance of standards for VoIP
Today we’d like to pass on three reader comments about vendor support for VoIP standards vs. their internally developed protocols.
One reader takes issue with our contention that proprietary protocols aren’t necessarily bad in a closed (single enterprise) system. He writes:
“The bad thing about proprietary protocols, even in a contained environment, is lack of commercially available test equipment, and a lack of readily available maintenance talent. This forces the users to get vendor support, which increases costs for both the end user and the vendor, which further increases costs for the end user. So while from a consultant’s perspective proprietary protocols may be theoretically OK, from an operations management perspective they are not.”
Our reply: Excellent point – and an alert to readers who are constructing their business case to include these added costs that may have not been included in the original calculations.
The second reader suggests that some vendors may prefer to support proprietary protocols to add another layer of security since proprietary products are less vulnerable to malicious attack.
Our reply: While the reader’s premise is true, we would hope that network engineers would consider both proprietary AND standards-based products equally vulnerable. After all, a cut cable or an employee bent on destruction can do damage to both.
In the third comment (really, our third “set” of comments) many vendors noted that they have had SIP-based VoIP equipment for some time, and would be happy to brief us and our readers about it.
Our reply: Now that summer’s over and school is about to begin, we look forward to a full fall season of trade shows and briefings on many more convergence-related topics.
