Subject: Re: SIP

From: "Paul E. Jones" <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 18:34:33 -0500

Henry Sinnreich  wrote:

>Douglas writes:
>> The solution seems to be the "Implementation Agreement" where, instead of
>> the standards body picking and choosing, a group of vendors,
implementors,
>> or customers (or all three) get together and make the choices. Sometimes
>> each group gets together separately and we get three or more IAs.
>
>We exchange here e-mail and web pages by using IETF standard protocols. Am
>not aware that our applications, whatever they are, went through
implementor
>agreements and the like.

But even mail and web services are not without problems.  Take a web browser
written in 1995 and visit some of today's more elaborate web sites.  Create
an e-mail with Microsoft's Outlook Express using HTML and send it to a user
with a mail client written in 1995 (heck, send it to a Netscape user with
up-to-date software).

It is true that most of today's mail clients can understand SMTP, POP3,
IMAP, HTML, MIME, etc.  It is also true that most of today's web browsers
can support HTML 4.0, CSS, GIF, JPG, PNG, WAV, AU, MPEG, RealAudio, etc.
However, it has not been without pain on the users-- they have had to
upgrade their software every time a new "whiz-bang" feature was added.  Be
prepared to upgrade your web browsers again soon as XML and XSL displace
much of HTML and CSS and MP3 becomes a new important audio format on the
web.

We cannot and should not expect our telephone system to act this way.

People will be investing billions of dollars into IP telephony solutions--
they had better talk to each other.  We must agree on how to authorize users
when delivering calls to gateways.  We must agree on how to locate users or
resolve addresses.  We must agree on QoS issues (use RSVP?), billing,
roaming, access to emergency services, etc., etc.

When I go to the store to by my IP phone, bring it home, and plug it into my
hub, it should allow me to dial my grandmother's phone number and her phone
should ring.  The mechanics of accomplishing that are complex, and we must
have agreements on how that should be done at every step of the way.  In
addition, I expect that my IP telephone will continue to work for more than
four years.

Creating an "Implementation Agreement" as Douglas suggests is not a bad
idea.  It was not necessary with other protocols because they were simple,
the implementations were software-based and free (so cost was no issue), and
developed without interest from parties investing billions of dollars.  The
last point is the key-- when people spend billions of dollars, they expect
it to work.  Specifying a bunch of loosely related protocols and letting
people build several implementations, picking and choosing incompatible
components to address requirements, and waiting to see which one is
"coolest" and declaring it the winning combination will not work in the IP
telephony space.

Best Regards,
Paul

---

From: [email-masked]
Date: Fri, 22 Jan 1999 18:51:40 -0700

>"coolest" and declaring it the winning combination will not work in the IP

I dunno, I think it could work out pretty well that way.  If my IP phone
works just like my current telephone, then I don't want one.  I can't speak
for the people spending the billions of dollars, but I am most interested
in IP telephony for the innovations it will bring.  And, I don't think
anyone would suggest that standards committees are fertile ground for
innovation; it's just not their mission.  Also, let's not forget that it
took many years for the existing telephone system to reach it's current
level of maturity.

Tim

Tim Dorcey
iXL-Los Angeles
[email-masked]
(310) 235-3928

---

From: "Henry Sinnreich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 23 Jan 1999 15:47:03 -0500

Tim Dorcey writes:
> in IP telephony for the innovations it will bring.

Agree, it is not imitating the telephone network, but the platform for
innovations that makes sense. Also, then it will not be IP  telephony any
more, but rather a rich mix of services, of which voice is just another
component IMHO.

Henry Sinnreich
MCI WorldCom
400 International Parkway
Richardson, Texas 75081

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [email-masked]
> [mailto:[email-masked]]On Behalf Of
> [email-masked]
> Sent: Friday, January 22, 1999 8:52 PM
> To: [email-masked]
> Cc: [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: SIP
>
>
> ---------
> This message came from the IETF IPTEL Working Group Mailing List.
>

---

From: Jay Batson <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 11:02:07 -0500

This thread is effectively pointing out the fact that there are
philosophical differences between people.  Not that one is "right" and one
is "wrong."  And that the protocol must allow accomodation.

The issue is flexibility vs. degree of effort.  When everyone is forced to
agree and do precisely the same thing, progress speed slows from the speed
of innovation to the speed of agreement.  I, for one, *prefer* to live with
some imperfection in exchange for faster innovation and change.  I prefer
Internet-speed to Telecom-speed.

The very fact that two end nodes can agree to do whatever they want across
an IP network, and that the IP network provides simple transport (hopefully
soon with a QoS component), permits an incredible rate technology
advancement.  Last Thursday I learned about ImagineRadio -- a 'net-based
"radio station" that I can customize to my tastes, and listen to with a
Real Audio player.  Supported by text ads (no voice-ads.)  Some guy thought
of it, and I simply added RealAudio to my web browser to support him.  I
didn't need UUNET to "agree on a implementation of personalized radio
station traffic carriage."  And no, it isn't as good as FM quality sound...
yet.  But I listen to it anyway because the music choice fits me better
than anything I can get over the airwaves.  And it all happened in a few
months simply because the basic protocols existed -- not a standardization
of how the protocols are supposed to be used.  Where's PSTN "radio?"
Non-existent.

Today, I can choose to deploy to my company an email application that does
*straight* text in a predictable, reliable, manageable way.  Or I can
choose to deploy Netscape/Outlook email and have graphics/rich-text
displayed in-line, and pay for a higher degree of management/software cost
in the process.  Or get some other feature that some vendor provides,
simply because POP and MIME are so elegantly extensible -- X-mynewfeature:
application/mynew-whizbang-thing.  We here at Pingtel have chose the
innovative email, despite its warts.  Of course, in either case, email gets
through....

In contrast, look at how telco/cable-driven "interactive network"
experiments have gone.  Closed environments in limited regions with bogus,
thinly disguised restaurant advertisements substituting for "entertainment"
guides.  Ask any business manager who has been in the "Smart Phone"
business about telco-driven "interactive phone" trials where the telco
provided the "content," email servers, ....  (Minitel notwithstanding.)

Compare that to boston.sidewalk.com, or www.boston.com, where there is
competition, incredible innovation on how to organize information.  This
all works because of the genius of HTML/HTTP/Javascript/... on an "open,"
public IP network.  Extensible, simple, text-based protocols that anybody
can innovate around.  And (let me cast a barb here) do without buying an
expensive ASN.1 compiler... ;-)

Paul may rightly feel that he wants a higher degree of stability and
predictability.  That the protocols should provide the same experience as
the PSTN.  This is his choice.  He should find service providers who
*focus* on this, and *eliminate* products from their network (and those to
whom they connect) that would replicate the PSTN experience using IP
technology.  His service providers should *prohibit* technology that
contains the degree of freedom that *I* would choose.

However, *I* should be able to choose from service providers and products
that are to IP Telephony what UUNET and Netscape are to the Internet:  they
provide reliable, basic, and extensible infrastructure that can be extended
at will between consenting parties.  I *want* things to work the way HTTP,
HTML, SMTP/POP, ..., all work today, warts and all, because I want the
innovation.

I *want* an ITSP that will, at some point in the future, provide me with
the ability to buy/install (at my site) my own leading-edge application
that will take in my SMTP mail, and use "3rd party signalling" with my ITSP
(via SIP/MGCP/whatever) to set up a voice phone call between me on my IP
wireless (premises) phone (from Symbol Technologies) and the sender of a
SMTP message, via a service-provider-run IP/PSTN gateway, all because the
words "CALL ME" were in the subject line of the SMTP message.

And I want the protocol open enough so that Joe's Software in Palo Alto can
write the application, sell it to me, and have it work with my ITSP's
(probably Henry's, er, MCI/Worldcom's ;-) IP/PSTN voice network.  And if it
doesn't work occasionally because it's still immature, I'll put up with it
because the infrastructure -- read "the protocols" -- permitted the
extensibility *without* requiring absolute, rigid adherence to the *way* in
which they should be used.

>We cannot and should not expect our telephone system to act this way.

There is another "we" who feels an entirely contrary way:
We cannot and should not constrain the IP voice systems of the future --
they can, and *should* work the way web browsers/email/... all work today,
with the need to upgrade/install software to get the new whiz-bang
features.  The price of innovation is that you have to work to keep up.
Give me the work anyday as long as you give me the innovation.

Give me choices in how to locate users.  Give me choices in how to select
IP/PSTN gateways.  Let me choose which QoS choice I want (by giving ITSPs
choices in products to deploy.)

I want a *choice* in *what happens* when I pick up the phone to call
grandma.  I *do* want it to connect.  I do want some base level
functionality -- just as HTML/SMTP/... all do their basic job on the 'net.
But let extensibility roam free.  If in the process, products don't work
with each other, fix 'em.  Everything does *not* need to be perfect
day-one.  This has plenty of precedent in the IP world.  Back in the early
days of IP dialup, when we called it "Remote Access," various dialup
servers didn't all work with the same client software.  We all used PPP,
but "differently."  The market didn't buy it.  Customers demanded that a
Mac PPP, a Win 3.1 PPP, and a Win95 PPP all be able to dial into the same
server.  So we created the "PPP Forum," and did PPP "bakeoffs."  (Just like
the VoIP Forum....)  Today, do you have any *clue* whether you're dialing
into an Ascend box or a 3Com/USR box at your ISP?  No.

This is not intended as derogatory, but to my mind, this is a pure
"bell-head vs. net-head" discussion.  The net-head approach to protocols
has certainly created some great new innovations in the last 5-10 years.
I'd sure hate to take that away from IP telphony's future.

Cheers
-jb

At 06:34 PM 1/22/99 -0500, Paul E. Jones wrote:
>>> the standards body picking and choosing, a group of vendors, implementors,
>>not aware that our applications, whatever they are, went through implementor
>>agreements and the like.
>
>But even mail and web services are not without problems....
>upgrade their software every time a new "whiz-bang" feature was added....
>

----------
Jay Batson
President, CEO
Pingtel Corp.
[email-masked]

781-938-5306 (office)
781-938-9650 (fax)

---

From: Scott Petrack <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 13:02:02 -0500

>We cannot and should not expect our telephone system to act this way.

With all due respect, this is really just because we are in the absolute
infancy of "Internet Based communication". The Web is less than 6 years
old, for goodness sake, and the PSTN is well over 100 years old. I believe
that there was quite a long time in the early days of the telephone when
you needed to have 2 or more phones on your desk if you wanted to talk to
people on different networks. 

(Actually, I have been looking for a long time for a good history of the
telephone communication up till about 1900-1920. If someone can recommend
something I'd be very grateful.)

You are absolutely correct that things are still changing much too fast,
and there is too much which does not yet exist, to imagine that we are
ready for a final global solution to IP based communications. This does not
mean that we shouldn't think very hard about how to acheive that goal,
however.

I do believe that a certain number of things are more stable than others,
and I would suggest that you confine your billions to those things in the
meantime (happily enough I have just formed a dynamite new startup which
takes traveller's checks ;-)).

Scott

---

From: Henning Schulzrinne <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 25 Jan 1999 19:24:50 -0500

> something I'd be very grateful.)

See (Costs $10 and has tons of references, plus is a pretty good read:)

@BOOK{Frie95:Natural,
AUTHOR="Amy Friedlander",
TITLE="Natural Monopoly and Universal Service: Telephones and Telegraphs
in the U.S.  Communications Infrastructure, 1837-1940",
PUBLISHER="CNRI",
ADDRESS="Washington, DC",
YEAR=1995,
KEYWORDS="telephone; telegraph; history",
ABSTRACT="This study examines the history of the telegraph and telephone
industries in the United States from the perspectives of technology,
corporate strategy, politics, and economics.  Under the aegis of the
Bell Company and its successors, the telephone followed a path similar
to that pioneered in the 1860s by the telegraph giant, Western Union.
Indeed, the telephone itself was invented in the 1870s as an
unanticipated product of efforts to solve technological limitations of
telegraphy.  Like Western Union, Bell targeted communications among
urban, commercial interests (as opposed to private residential and/or
...",
URL="http://www.cnri.reston.va.us/series.html#teltel",
ENTRYBY=Sc
}

-- 
Henning Schulzrinne   http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~hgs

---

From: Douglas Clowes <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 27 Jan 1999 10:14:56 +1100

>people on different networks. 

Hey Scott,

I used to work at a place (not that long ago) where I had those two phones
on my desk. The reason was not that they were not compatible, just that
they were not that connected. The internal phone system was a dial it
yourself one, while the external one was a lady with plugs and cords and
you asked her to dial your number for you. Amazing!

But with that antique phone system, she could still dial me on my GSM
mobile, which is about the same age as the Web. And it would work - much
better that the email system, or many parts of the web.

Try replying to
"=A0=A0=A0=A0=A0.Fred.Bloggs[mailto:[email-masked]]=20" to tell
them that you can't read their HTML crap - I mean "message". And see your
mail client "spit the dummy" yet again.

>something I'd be very grateful.)

Actually, I think that the "answer" to all of this organized chaos was the
CCITT, now the ITU.

>mean that we shouldn't think very hard about how to acheive that goal,

A lot of people tollerate change very well. Hey, some of us actually enjoy
it - something new to play with every day. But, there is a big slice of the
consuming public out there who don't want to upgrade every Thursday. They
don't want to find out that their new IP phone can't talk to any other
phone that was built outside the window of two weeks of the date that
theirs was built. The sort of phone that these consumers are wanting to pay
for is --- an ITU phone (just like the black one, only cheaper to run).

>takes traveller's checks ;-)).

And when the market for "whiz-bang" settles down, and stabilizes, it too
will become commodity. But, there will be a minimum set of common
capabilities which will allow all of them with the compliance sticker to
interwork (as per the implementation agreement and compliance test
requirements).

Douglas

---

From: "Henry Sinnreich" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 26 Jan 1999 20:46:15 -0500

Douglas wrote:
The sort of phone that these consumers are
> wanting to pay

Why don't you just keep it and let us do IP?

Henry

> From: Douglas Clowes [mailto:[email-masked]]
> Sent: Tuesday, January 26, 1999 6:15 PM
> To: Scott Petrack; Paul E. Jones; Henry Sinnreich; Jonathan Rosenberg
> Cc: Henning Schulzrinne; [email-masked]; Aishling;
> [email-masked]; [email-masked]
> Subject: Re: SIP
>
>