A decade of VoIP

Philippe Babin, General Manager of Media5 Corporation, takes a closer look at the impact of VoIP on organisations in the last 10 years.

It seems like almost yesterday that we were all bringing in the new millennium, and worrying that the world would come to an end as the clock struck midnight. With the first decade of the 21st century nearly over a lot has transpired in the telecommunications industry, but nothing has made such a controversial impact as that of VoIP. It is being called the decade of VoIP, but the reality is that there were many times when critics and industry insiders called for the death of VoIP. Early in the decade, VoIP was in its infancy, with challenges surrounding voice quality, reliability, interoperability and security. The industry also faced the challenges created by the dot.com 'meltdown' which had significant impacts on both investment in technology as well as communications infrastructure.

There was also reluctance amongst the major service providers to promote VoIP. Early on it was an argument about voice quality, but over time it became more about protection of their revenue base, even as developers brought new solutions to the market, offering better and better voice quality and reliability. Finally, a major hurdle for VoIP has been the public's understanding of what exactly VoIP was, its benefits and value to enterprises, service providers and consumers. A key challenge has been getting out the message that VoIP provides wonderful opportunities, and is certainly not just a technology to use on a computer. But I am glad to say that VoIP now is a fundamental component of our modern telecommunication systems.

Moving forward VoIP will continue to be a significant catalyst for change in the way that service providers, enterprises and consumers use communications. VoIP takes on different names and forms:  be it IMS for service providers looking to voice, video, wireless and IP systems around SIP or unified communications (UC) in the enterprise world. The current economic slowdown has had little effect on the VoIP market. A recent report showed that in the enterprise segment, VoIP users had continued to rise, to over 28 percent in 2008 and it is expected to be over 50 percent by 2012. Challenged by the new generation of 'over Internet' services providers, traditional telcos around the world are considering the use of IMS or UC system to differentiate themselves. Should it be over wireless, WiMax, copper lines or fibre optics, to protect their market segment or expand into new regions.

Beyond this, we believe that as VoIP and SIP evolve, users will expect broader capabilities. We feel that security and survivability will become ever-more important capabilities in enhanced VoIP solutions. Our plan is to ensure that our solutions are leaders in these areas. With our Media5Boss solutions on one side but also our easy to customise software and hardware platforms, we enable the service providers to thoroughly differentiate themselves by offering well proven technologies. This year at Media5 we released the Media5Boss-Branch, an advanced, all-in-one suite of cost-effective solutions designed to offer security and survivability in multi-site, branch office environments. We are convinced that these offerings will meet the needs of organisations looking to deploy security and survivability into their overall telecommunications infrastructure.

We are also seeing some exciting developments in the area of mobility. Offices today are anywhere and everywhere. We have recently introduced several interesting mobility solutions to provide enhanced and integrated communications for an enterprise's mobile worker. Media5Boss-Mobility is a powerful all-in-one solution for secure fixed-mobile convergence. Media5-Fone is a SIP Client (softphone) that runs on the Apple iPhone.

As well as the Mobility SDK, a software development kit, allowing service providers to easily create their customised, secure SIP-based applications that can run directly on the iPhone. While there are challenges ahead, we are excited by the opportunities that the next decade will provide, and we are already at work on the next wave of solutions.

To learn more about Media5 Corporation and its line of leading VoIP solutions and services, please visit www.media5corp.com or info@media5corp.com.

Philippe Babin, General Manager Media5 Corporation, joined in 2001, first as director R&D and later on as head of product line management. In these positions, Babin had the opportunity to implement successful product development processes, and to define the company's strategic orientations.

Babin graduated in Electrical Engineering at Université de Sherbrooke, Québec, and completed an MBA in Business Administration in 2004 at the same university.