Subject: RE: H.323

From: Henry Sinnreich <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 14 Dec 1997 08:11:11 -0600

On Saturday, December 13, 1997 2:28 PM, Dan Wing [SMTP:[email-masked]] 
wrote:

> It may very well be too late for SIP (and related protocols) versus H.323
> (and related protocols).  For voice-over-IP, vendors are building 
products
> using H.323 because the standard exists.

Glad to have observed quite the contrary:

The 12/10 IETF BOF for SIP Telephony was extremely well attended by vendors 
and users alike. At a 2nd meeting, at the MMUSIC session that day, SIP was 
again a topic of high interest and to my recollection, due to the numerous 
new features proposed lately, not due to any lack of interest or technical 
problems. SIP was the topic the 3rd time at the PINT WG, since it matters 
there as well.

Anyone wanting to roll out effective products for IP telephony or 
conferencing, would just be too hard pressed to pass up the many benefits 
of SIP for rich communications and low development costs. Please check out 
a sample of what was presented at http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs/sip/se  
rvices.html

I believe there may well be soon convergence between SIP and H.323, 
possibly as a H.323 version 3.

Henry

> This is happening again in fax.  Both IETF and ITU are defining competing
> standards for fax over SMTP; coordination is difficult when the market is
> pushing for interoperating products "now" but correct engineering takes
> awhile, especially educating people without knowledge of the Internet 
about
> the Internet, and educating people without knowledge of fax about fax.
> There will be a flurry of activity on the IETF-FAX mailing list as we try 
to
> create a standard that will more-or-less acceptable to both groups.
>
> In the future, such problems can only be resolved by getting standards 
out
> the door quickly and efficiently, concentrating on what is necessary to
> build a product that solves the immediate problems while allowing for 
later
> extensions for what is perceived to be important for "version 2".
>
> (Above is my personal opinion only.)
>
> -Dan Wing
>