IP Telephony

International Telecommunication Union

IP Telephony

ECTRA – APRII MeetingBerlin, September 26-28, 2001

Robert Shaw

<[email protected]>

ITU Internet Strategy and Policy Advisor


The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of the ITU or its membership.


Agenda

• Internet around the world• IP Telephony:

– Implications for high, medium and low-priced markets

– Country case studies– What are the issues?– World Telecom Policy Forum 2001: IP Telephony

• Opinion D

– Information resources

• ENUM & Convergence


Source: ITU, adapted from Internet Software Consortium <www.isc.org>.

Number of Internet host computers, in millions, and annual growth in %

0.1 0.2 0.4 0.7 1.3 2.7 5.814.4

21.829.7

43.2

72.4

104.0

44%

67%

46%36%

70%

95%

79%

107%

81%93%

100%

135%

Jan-89

Jan-90

Jan-91

Jan-92

Jan-93

Jan-94

Jan-95

Jan-96

Jan-97

Jan-98

Jan-99

Jan-00

Jan-01


Top Internet Markets

60%

49%

46%

41%

40%

37%

35%

35%

35%

30%

Iceland

Norway

Sweden

Canada

Finland

Denmark

Korea (Rep.)

Australia

USA

Singapore

Top 10 countries by Internet user penetration, Jan. 2001

95

39

23

20

16

15

13

7

7

6

USA

Japan

China

Germany

Korea (Rep.)

UK

Canada

Australia

France

Italy

Top 10 countries by number of Internet users (millions), Jan. 2001

Source: ITU, Internet Software Consortium <www.isc.org>, RIPE <www.ripe.net>.


Inter-regional Internet backbone357 Mbit/s

19’716 Mbit/s

Asia-Pacific

LatinAmerica &Caribbean

2’638 Mbit/s

127 Mbit/s

Arab States, Africa

468 Mbit/s 171

Mbit/s

Europe

56’241 Mbit/sUSA &Canada

Source: TeleGeography Inc., Global Backbone Database. Data valid for Sept. 2000.


IP Telephony: What is it?

• Internet Protocol (IP) Telephony is a generic term describing voice or fax carried over IP-based networks, such as the Internet.

• IP Telephony is important:– In the short-term, because it cuts the cost of calls,

especially if routed over the public Internet– In the longer-term, because telecoms carriers are

migrating their separate voice and data networks to converged IP-based networks

• Examples of IP Telephony Service Providers include Net2Phone, Dialpad.com, iBasis etc.


IP Telephony Flavours• Often treated differently from policy or

regulatory perspective– Carried solely across the public Internet– IP is underlying transport or signalling

technology for PSTN services (e.g., using SS7)

– IP telephony on full end-to-end “private” IP networks (e.g., using “softswitch technology”)

– Combinations of the above with gateways between Internet or private IP-based networks and the PSTN


IP Telephony: Four main stages of evolution

• PC-to-PC (since 1994)– Connects multimedia PC users, simultaneously online– Cheap, good for chat, but inconvenient and low quality

• PC-to-Phone (since 1996)– PC users make domestic and int’l calls via gateway– Increasingly services are“free” (e.g., Dialpad.com)

• Phone-to-Phone (since 1997)– Accounting rate bypass– Low-cost market entry (e.g., using calling cards)

• Voice/Web integration (since 1998)– Calls to website/call centres and freephone numbers– Enhanced voice services (e.g., integrated messaging)


Why is IP Telephony important?IP Telephony traffic, in million minutes

0.0% 0.2%

1.6%

5.5%

3.2%

0

1'000

2'000

3'000

4'000

5'000

6'000

7'000

1997 1998 1999 2000 2001

As percentage of int'l outgoing traffic

Source: ITU Internet Reports, adapted from TeleGeography Inc.


Pricing IP for voice services

• In competitive, low-price markets– Main market opportunity for IP Telephony is for

value-added services, e.g., unified messaging

• In markets in transition to competition– IP Telephony offers a route towards early

introduction of competition and creates downward pressure on prices

• In high-price, monopoly markets– Where permitted, IP Telephony creates opportunities

for low-cost calls– Even if not permitted, IP Telephony is widely used to

reduce costs of international call termination


Country positions on IP Telephony189 ITU Member States

As of March 2001. Based on responses to ITU regulatory questionnaire and inputs to WTPF-01.

No policy orNo response

98

Prohibited35

Regulated if "real-time"

7

Unregulated, 26 countries

Unregulated if not "real-time", 18

Light regulation

5


Country case studies: IP Telephony legal status

Source: Summary of ITU country case studies, available at: www.itu.int/wtpf/casestudies.


WTPF 2001 on IP Telephony: What are the key issues?

• Technical:– How to define IP Telephony?– Is quality of service comparable? Will it improve?– How to handle numbering/addressing issues?

• Economic:– What price and cost savings can be expected?– How quickly will carriers migrate their networks?– Isn’t it just a form of bypass of telecom monopolies?

• Regulatory:– Is it voice or is it data?– License it? Prohibit it? Restrict it? Liberalise it?– Should IP Telephony contribute to Universal Service?


WTPF 2001 Opinion D: Essential Studies to facilitate introduction of IP Telephony

• Invites the three ITU sectors to initiate studies to facilitate the introduction of IP Telephony on:– compatibility and inter-operability of radio access between IP networks

and PSTNs, – working definitions of IP telephony and Internet telephony – whether, and to what extent, to require compatibility with the existing

international telephone service, including developing appropriate performance metrics and QoS

– Whether, and to what extent, IP Telephony can be part of national PSTNs and whether traffic identification and measurement need to be considered

– identifying the cost elements of international IP connectivity with respect to the introduction of IP Telephony

• Invites the ITU-D to establish a group of experts to:– Prepare a checklist of Factors to be considered;– Advise on the policy impacts in developing countries;– Prepare a report to the next World Telecom Development Conf.


Information resources• ITU Internet Reports 2001: IP Telephony• Secretary-General’s report (sole

working document of the Forum)

• Chairman’s report (output of Forum)

• Website: www.itu.int/wtpf

• Country case studies: Canada, China, Colombia, Egypt, Korea (Rep.), Nepal, Peru, Uganda, etc


ENUM & Convergence

• Problems of addressing calls that pass from one network service to another:– Now widely possible to originate calls from IP

address-based networks to other networks– But uncommon to terminate calls from other

networks to IP address-based networks – To access a subscriber on an IP address-based

network, some sort of global addressing scheme across PSTN and IP address-based networks needed

• ENUM may be “glue” solution…


ENUM Resolution

DNS+1 202 456 1414

4.1.4.1.6.5.4.2.0.2.1.foo.tld

Page:18001112223334445Page

http://insite.whitehouse.comHTTP

Tel:+1202 456 1414TEL

Smtp:[email protected]

Sip:[email protected]

Service AddressProtocolENUM converts

an E.164 telephone

number into a set of service

addresses

ClientSoftware


From Secretary-General’s Report to ITU Council 2001

• ENUM potentially renews the question of the appropriate framework for management of naming and addressing in an increasingly converged telecommunications and Internet/IP environment.

• It is likely that implementation of ENUM may introduce further review of public policy objectives vis-à-vis the DNS and the E.164 numbering plan at national and international levels.


Views of INTUG

• Possible that ENUM might have effects on some or all of the following: – integrity of national numbering schemes – competition between service providers – telecommunications network security – number portability – carrier selection – emergency services calls (including the passing of

location information) – privacy – control over personal records – control of slamming


• Thank you…

IP Telephony

Documents

Transcript of IP Telephony