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Unhappy with relying on proprietary extensions to do the most trivial of enterprise features - hold, transfer etc - some vendors are tilting at the windmill to get interoperability going.

In this story by Phil Hochmuth of Network World, reports on the arguments for SIP-B (SIP for Business) , a definition of RFC 3261 extensions that could enable some proprietary extension conversions to standard practice.

Usually promoted by vendors with lots to gain, extensions to standards have a rough road ahead and the SIP-B, is no exception. In the story, Phil surveys the industry problem well (call transfer doesn't work if the SIP call control is from one vendor, and the SIP phone is from another). However, the fact that there is little industry support in IETF to codify extensions, and only a modicum of interest in the SIP Forum tells you that this is not a break-the-bank or kill-the-market impending feature requirement. It's a nice to have, with little benefit for the vendors who invested in their frameworks for proprietary extensions.

For all the years I worked for Nortel, it took Citel and 3Com to show me a phone system where a Norstar phone worked with a Meridian phone!

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In this interview, I review with Bryan Richard's guidance the scope of 3Com Secure Converged Networks strategy, the depth of our solution set and where 3Com sees substantial opportunities. I even gave a summary of my latest white paper: What's SIP Got To Do With It?

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In today's edition, Ron Kermish and Paul Smith from Bain, discuss the hidden jewel inside MCI and AT&T that made them the target of Verizon, SBC and Qwest.

It's VoIP silly.

The network, the engineering skill, the intellectual property of how to do VoIP for millions of consumers, businesses and government minutes is at the heart of the purchases. Convergence networks for carriers simplifies management and operation. That's because they simplify the architecture, allowing the network to balance the network load automatically interweaving packets of voice conversations together into a seamless web of conversations.

But, it's not just for the LD; it's for the new kinds of services. Convergence services. Services built on IP that may happen to involve real-time voice or not.

Media-rich services.

This is the future of communications, and, with the acquisition of MCI by Verizon, and the acquisition of AT&T by SBC, it is the future of these 'behemoth' corporations.

Interestingly, Smith and Kermish recommend that carriers must jump into the world of convergence more and faster and deeper, despite their legacy infrastructure, because the competition is already there.

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I went searching around on Google for stuff on SIP and carriers. Here's one of the best articles yet.

Paul Gowans of Agilent Technologies writes about the emergence of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) in this clear piece on the integration of wireline, IP and wireless networks.

Check it out.