Peter Nutley (Director of Product Marketing) and Tolga Sakman (Sr. Mgr, M&A and Alliances) from Tandberg cornered me at Interop in Las Vegas. They had read my recent postings about the lack of true B2B video, but argued that Tandberg has good B2B video solutions in place already, what is the big deal? Here is an email that Peter subsequently sent to me, my comments below.
We read with great interest your recent posts regarding the challenges around B2B video communications. We would like to make a few points clear:
TANDBERG has been enabling customers to easily and securely make B2B calls for several years now. Our Expressway technology enables secure, standards based firewall traversal. As part of our total solution, Expressway enables customers to reach any other endpoint that is properly configured by URI dialing--for example, I can be reached from any standards compliant endpoint in the world (assuming it is properly configured and has appropriate network access) by an end user dialing [email protected]
It is important to note that URI dialing also helps create a truly scalable dialing plan that removes the need for prefixes, country codes, etc. and helps everyone maintain an easy way to remember how to reach someone, regardless of what country they are in and what network they are on. This allows for a system that can scale to any length and address that is supported with the DNS architecture, providing a solution to the level of scale that email is today.
In addition, we offer interactive video and voice response units which can be reached by standards compliant systems which are in no way registered or peered to our VCS (which provides H.323 GK functions, among other things)--much like a user would get an automated voice response when calling their bank, for example, our solution enables any caller to either select an on-screen entry or choose who they would like to connect with from an approved phone book.
The above solutions have been deployed by our customers all over the world, and facilitate seamless, ad-hoc B2B calling at any time. That being said, TANDBERG actively supports carrier efforts and international standards to deliver a true ad hoc global IP dialing mechanism. ENUM, for example, has tremendous potential to solve much of this. We also encourage carriers to enable appropriate peering between their IP networks to meet customer requirements towards a true unified IP numbering plan and interconnected IP carrier networks with QoS.
TANDBERG has been enabling customers to easily and securely make B2B calls for several years now. Our Expressway technology enables secure, standards based firewall traversal. As part of our total solution, Expressway enables customers to reach any other endpoint that is properly configured by URI dialing--for example, I can be reached from any standards compliant endpoint in the world (assuming it is properly configured and has appropriate network access) by an end user dialing [email protected]
It is important to note that URI dialing also helps create a truly scalable dialing plan that removes the need for prefixes, country codes, etc. and helps everyone maintain an easy way to remember how to reach someone, regardless of what country they are in and what network they are on. This allows for a system that can scale to any length and address that is supported with the DNS architecture, providing a solution to the level of scale that email is today.
In addition, we offer interactive video and voice response units which can be reached by standards compliant systems which are in no way registered or peered to our VCS (which provides H.323 GK functions, among other things)--much like a user would get an automated voice response when calling their bank, for example, our solution enables any caller to either select an on-screen entry or choose who they would like to connect with from an approved phone book.
The above solutions have been deployed by our customers all over the world, and facilitate seamless, ad-hoc B2B calling at any time. That being said, TANDBERG actively supports carrier efforts and international standards to deliver a true ad hoc global IP dialing mechanism. ENUM, for example, has tremendous potential to solve much of this. We also encourage carriers to enable appropriate peering between their IP networks to meet customer requirements towards a true unified IP numbering plan and interconnected IP carrier networks with QoS.
Here is what I think:
There are two different issues of connectivity for video that we have to address, which I refer to as signaling and transport. Signaling is the low-bandwidth control traffic that we use to figure out where the other party is located, negotiate the connection characteristics and set up the call. Transport is the high-bandwidth traffic that carries the audio and video once the call is established. Both are important.
Signaling is critically important because it addresses the simplicity with which we can establish connections. The user should not need to understand the topology of the network in order to set up the call. If the user can enter [email protected] as a dial string and the network can find the correct path to Peter with no further help, this is a good thing. Entering a phone-number-like string for Peter may be slightly more complex, but I would argue that we are all well-trained in phone numbers so it may be just as intuitive. But in either case we need this simple addressing approach.
Transport is critically important as well, because video collaboration requires high bandwidth, low loss, low jitter and low latency connections. This requirement is most critical for telepresence and high-definition video connections. And while the Internet today serves well to support signaling traffic, it does not do well supporting the high-quality demands of telepresence and HD video.
So on the signaling side what we need is consensus on which standards-based approach to use, and how to integrate a global community of video collaboration users into an interoperable approach. Do we use URI-based dialing as described above? Do we use familiar E.164-based dialing consistent with the phone network we all know so well? Will there be a directory service for video endpoints, or do we just pass our addresses around on our business cards? And who will own the interoperability testing to ensure all the vendors' equipment will play nicely?
Thus on the signaling side we have solutions that work today as Peter points out, but no consensus on which solution is the right one to use for a global standard.
The transport side is a bit murkier. High quality transport is available from individual carriers. If all B2B parties are using the same carrier, high quality transport can be provided. The problem comes when traversing carriers. And the biggest issue between carriers is not a technical issue, but instead a business issue. Today there are no financial incentives in place that allow a carrier who is being paid extra to support video at a high quality level to share that revenue with a second carrier. So if video traffic were to be passed from one carrier to another, the second carrier has no incentive to properly support that traffic.
Tandberg appears to be actively addressing the signaling components of the problem, using the Internet for global connectivity. The transport problem is not yet addressed and will require a shift in thinking by the carriers and some active international standardization efforts before it becomes ubiquitous and transparent.
