Monthly Archives: June 2013
ENUM
I think of Unified Communications (UC) as expansive as well as contractive. It wasn’t that long ago when electronic communication was limited to telephone calls. In the 1980’s we added email to that very short list. Since then we’ve expanded to video, instant message, SMS text, social media, and Twitter. For the millennial generation, land-line […]
Understanding Avaya Aura and IMS
If you’ve heard Avaya tout the benefits of an Aura architecture you’ve undoubtedly heard that what differentiates Aura from the competitors is its support of IMS principles. I certainly know that I’ve personally stressed that as a very important factor in why Aura stands head and shoulders above the traditional IP PBX. However, I realize […]
Survivable SIP Gateways for Avaya
Despite being a communications workhorse for many decades, the traditional TDM PBX has a number of problems. It’s big, mobility is difficult if not impossible, and there is no way to create a geographic disaster recovery configuration. I like to say that if you have a building, you have a PBX. If you have another […]
Refer Madness
Do you have a favorite song? How about a favorite color? A favorite SIP message? What’s that? You don’t have a favorite SIP message? You really should. Since SIP only has about a dozen messages it shouldn’t be too hard to pick one. I did and mine is Refer. Does that surprise you? Yes, Invite […]
Bring Your Own Experience
How many of you work on a computer that’s three-years-old? Four years? Five? Have you replaced your notebook computer with a handheld or tablet device? How about your cell phone? Do you still use a flip phone? Has your phone become your de facto camera? Does your TV set have a cathode ray tube or […]
Practicing Safe SIP
Remember the days when denial of service referred to “no shoes, no service,” a virus was a nasty cold, and security meant you locked your doors at night? Sadly, those days are long gone and unless we are prepared to give up Internet technologies and return to the dark days of CompuServe and analog telephones, […]
Intelligent SIP Endpoints
In an H.323 VoIP network, all call processing intelligence is contained within the PBX and H.323 telephones are little more than stimulus devices. An H.323 telephone informs the PBX when the user pressed a button. The PBX tells the telephone when to light a lamp and what to write to its display. The PBX tells […]
Fax Over IP
For the past ten-plus years enterprises have been making the switch from TDM to IP telephony. For the most part, this has involved replacing older digital telephones with IP equivalents while converting applications such as voice mail and voice response units to a SIP interface. The benefits of these conversions are significant and you would […]
SIP Adaptation
The trouble with standards is that they rarely are. Standard, that is. It seems that no matter what sort of technology you are dealing with, there are plenty of variations. In America a wall socket delivers electricity at 120 volts, 60 Hz. In England they use 230 volts, 50 Hz while in Mexico they’ve “standardized” […]
Choosing the Right SBC — It All Depends
I am often asked the question, “What’s the best Session Border Controller?” To me, that is like asking, “What’s the best place to vacation?” It all depends on what you’re looking for. Do you want to lie on the sand on some tropical beach or is skiing down a mountain slope your idea of a […]
Tao, Zen, and Tomorrow 