Supplementary services

[Timur]

Could you advise SIP PBX with implemented stable supplementary services? And another question about existence of gatekeeper with H.450 implementation (except Pathnavigator and ECS) does anyone advise product?
Thank you in advance.

[trapehzoid]

how about.. which specific services you are looking for?

That will help understand which gatekeeper or PBX *and* which endpoints make sense

[Timur]

Dear trapehzoid,

Could you first realize what supplementary services are and architecture in H.323 and SIP environment and then write? I advise you first to think second to write. Believe me it is good trend.

[trapehzoid]

Dear trapehzoid,

Could you first realize what supplementary services are and architecture in H.323 and SIP environment and then write? I advise you first to think second to write. Believe me it is good trend.

You do realize H.450 is broken into optional components don't you? Having a 'supplemental services' checkbox is useless. You need to define which services you are interested in and which are actually implemented. And then they need to be supported (depending on the feature) in the terminal as well.

And you are the one who posted his resume looking for a job? The pole I'd be using to keep you away grows with each post of yours... you aren't helping yourself one bit

[Timur]

Dear trapehzoid,

I think my CV is the last that can be discussed in the theme “supplementary services”. If you can’t advise you shouldn’t write anything with the aim to write anything.

[trapehzoid]

Dear trapehzoid,

I think my CV is the last that can be discussed in the theme “supplementary services”. If you can’t advise you shouldn’t write anything with the aim to write anything.

Here is my 'advise', know wtf you are asking if you want an answer.

You have yet to provide a concise question, hence no one has answered you.

[Timur]

Maybe I can wrong but on my mind word is not restricted plane figure… We will see maybe anyone has more experience than Polycom and Tandberg products.

[Glen Sykes]

For a constructive answer, seek not advice from Trapezhoid, for he taketh great delight in belittling anyone who dare answer him with anything other than grovelling servitude, either that or granting him an opportunity to furnish us with his unequalled wisdom in such a way as makes him look good.


In answer to your question...

The first thing you need to do is remove any notion of H... call signalling standards from SIP, as although the functionality is the same, they are not based on even remotely similar code bases.

H.450 supplementary services was an 'add-on' standard for H.323 to incorporate PBX type functionality (Call Transfer, Forward etc) into H.323. Support for H.450 in endpoint vendors is limited, with VCON being probably the only company to really fly the H.450 flag, and is equally limited in gatekeepers.

PBX functionality as described above in SIP is created as an extension to the main SIP protocol (Planned SIP Extensions (http://www.cs.columbia.edu/sip/extensions.html)), and will inevitably be absorbed into the main SIP protocol as the major voice vendors agree on the standard.

My bet is that vendors who have utilised H.323 as the standard for communications over IP will not bother to invest further resources in supporting H.450, as current wisdom tells us that SIP will eventually replace H.323 anyway, and by the time that happens, this functionality will already be incorporated into SIP.

The real question here is what are you trying to acheive?

[mazzarak]

Here is my 'advise', know wtf you are asking if you want an answer.

You have yet to provide a concise question, hence no one has answered you.

Play fair Trapehzoid, English is not the first language of everyone on this forum. This is a place for support and sharing a mutual interest, and not everyone has as much experience in writing English as you or I.
;)
Andy

[trapehzoid]

For a constructive answer, seek not advice from Trapezhoid, for he taketh great delight in belittling anyone who dare answer him with anything other than grovelling servitude, either that or granting him an opportunity to furnish us with his unequalled wisdom in such a way as makes him look good.

Whatever.. just because I tell it like it is vs. some. Your opinion of me is your own.


In answer to your question...
[..]
H.450 supplementary services was an 'add-on' standard for H.323 to incorporate PBX type functionality (Call Transfer, Forward etc) into H.323. Support for H.450 in endpoint vendors is limited, with VCON being probably the only company to really fly the H.450 flag, and is equally limited in gatekeepers.

Note how you can't answer his question either.. because he has yet to spell out a requirement. Asking for 'H.450' without asking for a feature is pointless.. and therefore prevents you from providing a useful answer. Your own attempt at answering the question proves that.

Other gatekeepers like even MCM can support some H.450 features, but its implementation isn't across the board, just like most other GKs aren't either. Hence the need to spell out a requirement, not an umbrella standard.

as current wisdom tells us that SIP will eventually replace H.323 anyway

Wisdom or hype? SIP will be its own dimise. Alternative protocals will overtake it in that critical 'lightweight' space that the telcoms need it for. For feature rich implementation it hasn't gained crap on H.323 in ages. Its stalled in the telecom world, and done nothing in the interactive world.

The only thing going for it is simplicity to implement.. and its that simplicity that is preventing it from interoperability and feature implementation.

I think H.450 hasn't been a player simply because the functionalities it mainly encompasses haven't been a requirement of where the 'big' H.323 players play. As the world moves to more 'personal' or 'personalized' endpoints.. its vision will come back around.

The real question here is what are you trying to acheive?

Exactly..

[trapehzoid]

Play fair Trapehzoid, English is not the first language of everyone on this forum. This is a place for support and sharing a mutual interest, and not everyone has as much experience in writing English as you or I.
;)
Andy

Its not his broken english I'm harping on.. its his inability to ask a specific question... and when asked to be specific, he throws his 'resume' at me like that is supposed to magically clarify something?

All I did was ask him to spell out what he needs, not some umbrella requirement which is pointless. Notice he failed to further quantify.. and that is why 3 weeks later he fails to have a solid answer.

It's not my fault he's asking for the 'hows' without even understanding the 'whats' he needs.

[Glen Sykes]

Whatever.. just because I tell it like it is vs. some. Your opinion of me is your own

And I'm happy to share it. You tell everyone your overall outlook in this opening statement, "you vs. some", why versus? You're as helpful as an ashtray on a motorcycle.


Yes I can't determine exactly what the guy is asking, but because I'm a genuinely helpful sort of guy, I'm actually trying to help him get his point across, unlike you who would rather score points off him. Goody for you.

The point of SIP isn't the fact that it's lightweight either, it just happens to be that way at the moment because of the stage of it's development. SIP will inevitably become the protocol of choice because its extensibility will allow cross application integration, enabling the vision of connectivity between IM, E-Mail, Telephone, Videophone, Videoconference, 3G, Web Collaboration and any other form of comms you want to throw into the mix. H.323's predominantly telecoms background makes it more difficult to integrate into applications such as Outlook or Notes for example.

With Cisco (yes Cisco) and all the major PBX vendors throwing their weight behind SIP as the IP signalling protocol of choice, and then Microsoft and IBM (and Siemens) also investing in SIP as the signalling protocol for their IM clients and collaboration software, and then Tandberg and Polycom also developing SIP for their systems, I think it's a fair bet that SIP will not just fizzle out.

[trapehzoid]

Yes I can't determine exactly what the guy is asking, but because I'm a genuinely helpful sort of guy, I'm actually trying to help him get his point across, unlike you who would rather score points off him. Goody for you.

Maybe you missed the other 2-3 threads where Timur used up his 'newbie help' points.

http://www.vtctalk.com/showthread.php?t=25254&page=1

He's full of using big terms and not listening to others.

The point of SIP isn't the fact that it's lightweight either, it just happens to be that way at the moment because of the stage of it's development.

No, the point IS its lightweight. Why do people prefer it over something like H.323? Because its requires less connections, so it scales better for something like a soft-PBX. It has less baggage to implement, so its easier to implement. Its a skeleton where people can pretty much do what they want.. that's why they like SIP.

SIP will inevitably become the protocol of choice because its extensibility will allow cross application integration, enabling the vision of connectivity between IM, E-Mail, Telephone, Videophone, Videoconference, 3G, Web Collaboration and any other form of comms you want to throw into the mix.

Then why do new deployments of things such as VoIP not all use SIP? There are plenty of 'other' protocols being used too. SIP isn't the magic bullet.. people are not running to it in bulk.. and its this dragging of feet that will slow it down enough that the 'new guy' will come along and usurp it.

H.323's predominantly telecoms background makes it more difficult to integrate into applications such as Outlook or Notes for example.
how do you qualify that?

[Glen Sykes]

Newbie help points??

Man you crack me up. Even if he did use up all his help points, how does that still justify you scoring points off him. Admit it, you're just using this guy for sport.

Regarding not all VoIP implementations using SIP, this is of course inevitable, just like not all videoconferencing systems use H.323, H.320 or SIP for that matter. Given the stage that we're at, we're bound to see different standards vying for position, what I would expect to happen however as with all these things is that over time the less popular implementations will either die off or serve niche markets.

Regarding my statement of H.323s telecoms ancestry making it more difficult, surely a person of your calibre doesn't need a pleb like me to spell it out to you? ....oh go on then, if you insist!

Ever read a full H.323 debug? You'll see that the structure of the protocol is remarkably similar to H.320, sharing many common structures such as Q.931 call set up messages looking very similar to H.225. This is because when H.323 was first developed, the key factor was interoperability with PSTN based systems.

SIP on the other hand, was not written with Telecoms first and foremost in mind, but it was about the establishment of sessions (you know, Layer 5), Session Initiation Protocol. This meant that the protocol lent itself to a multitude of different communications methods, as described previously. In addition, the construction of the protocol being based on similar structures to HTTP etc, meant that a) a wider base of programming expertise became available for the development of applications based on this language, and b) existing applications based on web style languages (for example MS Office 2003 using XML as the basis for a lot of its functionality) were able to hook into SIP much more easily.

So now I've qualified my statement, I look forward to reading numerous regurgitations of what I've written in your reply.

[Timur]

Dear “plant figure”,

“Its stalled in the telecom world, and done nothing in the interactive world” – about SIP, especially with Microsoft LCS is very strong idea.


Ok. Could you give me an example of SIP PBX that correctly works with LCS?

[trapehzoid]

Microsoft's heel will be that it requires a Microsoft Infrastructure. Not something everyone has, or is willing to do. LCS is fully dependent on Active Directory, and installing AD just for LCS would be.. simply put.. retarded.

[trapehzoid]

SIP on the other hand, was not written with Telecoms first and foremost in mind

Blah blah blah. Your 'justifications' of why H.323 are 'bad' are by design. They 'look similar' because they are the same. The idea was why reinvent the wheel? Reuse existing protocols and standards.. and yes.. GASP.. interoperability with existing systems. What a concept!

Honestly.. making SIP human readable vs. ASN.1 is a nice-ity not something dramatic.. and its not what shys people away. Its the fact H.323 has alot to implement... SIP is basically NOTHING. That is why small projects gravitate to it. They can spend time on the application, not the communications layer. Which is all great.. except no one focuses on interoperability at all.

And I don't see how your points have anything to do with outlook/etc. You might as well picked any program from the sky and simply said 'h323 is hard, SIP is easy'. Which may be true, but doesn't make SIP any better.

Feel free to focus on products with SIP functionalities. Meanwhile I'll run my network for the next 5 years smoothly with full functionality.

[Glen Sykes]

I never said H.323 was 'bad' by design, hell it got us where we are today, and for the record, I'm a big fan of H.323, however, what the protocol lacks is the extensibility to integrate into other applications, and none of your replies address this.

You try and make me look ignorant, do you think I'm so naive as to think that H.323 wasn't designed with interoperability in mind? If so you're an even bigger idiot than you portray yourself on here. As I said before, the fact is that H.323 was designed for interoperability with circuit switched networks in mind, and not interoperability with next generation packet switched services such as IM, presence, web collaboration, and SIP was. Yes SIP is immature, Yes SIP doesn't offer anywhere near the level of stable functionality of H.323, but it's underlying construction will allow for all this, and more.

I agree with you one one thing, if I'm to build a network for videoconferencing that I know is going to work with 'full functionality' (excluding presence, IM, web collaboration blah blah) today, it will be with H.323. However, at such time when SIP becomes the protocol of choice (which is my assertion), based on not only feature sets that compare with H.323 right now, but also on the ability to integrate with other applications (not just LCS either, as Lotus already support SIP, Cisco support SIP, Siemens support SIP, AVAYA support SIP, Nortel support SIP, Mitel support SIP.........), then I will implement SIP.

[Timur]

SIP at this moment is only the future for interactive multimedia both enterprise and ISP. But it will be soon. I think that in medium and large enterprise it will be Cisco CallManager v5 Linux based and Microsoft LCS.
Cisco CallManager with version 5 will be SIP PBX with their proprietary Cisco IP phones like 7960, 7040...
Microsoft LCS is very interesting first of all because it is Windows OS oriented that is LCS uses as terminal Windows OS (at this moment with IM Windows Communicator). Of course LCS uses Windows logic and architecture is similar to Exchange. Positioning of LCS is unified IM and webcollaboration with conferencing. LCS is SIP proxy but with poor supplementary services. We will see maybe LCS will be SIP PBX...
As for ISP networks I think that at this moment the leader is Alcatel with Convedia. Alcatel produces NGN and Convedia is media resource for signaling services to use PSTN interoperability and also resource for audio and video conferencing.
Don’t forget about 3G and WiMAX ... They will use for multimedia signaling SIP too.

[trapehzoid]

I never said H.323 was 'bad' by design, hell it got us where we are today, and for the record, I'm a big fan of H.323, however, what the protocol lacks is the extensibility to integrate into other applications, and none of your replies address this.

Well personally I don't see the need to share a common communications link for every type of collaboration feasible. So call me not moved by the story of SIP. Integration.. yes.. all relying on the same mechanism? Not convinced. I see it as 'jack of all trades, master of none'.

You try and make me look ignorant

I don't do anything.. I let people make their own impressions

If so you're an even bigger idiot than you portray yourself on here.

Tsk Tsk..

Yes SIP is immature, Yes SIP doesn't offer anywhere near the level of stable functionality of H.323, but it's underlying construction will allow for all this, and more.

Honestly to me.. the feature side could come later.. the part that should be scarey is the interoperability is NOT there.. and the path every vendor you listed is taking to get features are all propritary implementations. The story isn't getting better.. its getting WORSE. Honestly, I'm sick of people talking about SIP just to say they are doing it. If there is no benefit of doing it.. why do it? Yes in theory all these disperse applications could be making this cool cloud of 'collaboration'. But it ain't.. and its not coming anytime soon.. and the paths are DIVERGING.. not converging. So, why hold your breath?

I agree with you one one thing, if I'm to build a network for videoconferencing that I know is going to work with 'full functionality' (excluding presence, IM, web collaboration blah blah) today, it will be with H.323.

Why does it have to exclude those things? You can have presence today if you got slick with a gatekeeper. Plus other ideas. I don't think these things have to be exclusionary.. its just the vendors haven't been pushed to deliver these things. Well, you can argue some have (like VCON) and the market said no thanks.

However, at such time when SIP becomes the protocol of choice (which is my assertion), based on not only feature sets that compare with H.323 right now, but also on the ability to integrate with other applications (not just LCS either, as Lotus already support SIP, Cisco support SIP, Siemens support SIP, AVAYA support SIP, Nortel support SIP, Mitel support SIP.........), then I will implement SIP.

Ok, so when any of those implementations talk to each other.. let me know :)

[trapehzoid]

SIP at this moment is only the future for interactive multimedia both enterprise and ISP. But it will be soon. I think that in medium and large enterprise it will be Cisco CallManager v5 Linux based and Microsoft LCS.

What OS does the callmanager run have to do with anything? Its a blackbox application. Plus from what I hear.. Cisco and MS will be competitors before too long, not hand-in-hand buddies, on this front.

Positioning of LCS is unified IM and webcollaboration with conferencing.

I think LCS is positioned more as a infrastructure component to base other applications on.. IM and dataconferencing are just some examples. I see LCS moving more towards an engine, not an application. Its tie in with the other Microsoft applications shows this.. LCS becomes 'the man behind the curtain'.

[Timur]

Dear “plant figure”,
For enterprise purposes please try to use LCS with Polycom v8 and you will see interoperability. For ISP purposes please try to use softswitch Broadsoft with MGC it will be the same result.

[Timur]

Ok. Could you advise me IP video telephony solution with hardware backup in CO, support of distribute network with or without VPN using trunks and standard based?
It doesn’t mater what it will be in IP network SIP/H.323/MEGACO/MGCP it necessary PBX with supplementary services like in TDM infrastructure.