Internet2 : Voice Over IP Working Group : Fall 2002

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29 October 2002
VoIP Working Group Meeting, Los Angeles, CA

Testbed Description, Status, and Discussion:
* LD Trunking over Abilene, 15 institutions worldwide (Australia, Czech Republic)

* More international connections in progress (CUDI network in Mexico)

* UNAM university in Mexico connected, Monterey Tech will connect next

* Also interest from University in Vera Cruz.

* Challenge of getting equipment listed with other vendor equipment (connections now are Cisco only). South Carolina and U Washington use Avaya equipment. Gatekeeper function is in switch itself in Avaya equipment (also based on H.323 standards).

* Egon - Netherlands, gatekeeper allows people to dial-in freely within entire Netherlands. Based on RADVision combined with Cisco. Cisco connected to RADVision gatekeeper.

* Requirements to participate in H.323 version of testbed: gateway to campus switch and H.323 compliant gatekeeper.

* Vendors: Cisco (connected), in progress: Nortel, Avaya, Alcatel.

* Technical support from Texas A&M staff to assist Internet2 members in connecting

* Safir (Vanderbilt ??): Are phones available that work with IPv6? VoIP could benefit from IPv6 from technology viewpoint. However, not a lot of vendor support it yet due to the limited deployment of IPv6. Jay Beevers Microsoft Research spoke of an IPv6 version of Windows Messenger. Let's use VoIP WG list to gather names of people/institutions who are interested in testing VoIP-over-IPv6.

* Would like to formalize policy and procedures for IP phone use within Internet2 guidelines. Without going so far that we become provider/carrier and start to compete with vendors. Could use support from other organizations (e.g., ACUTA). VoIP testbed should support universal dialing, otherwise IP phones have limited use.

* Discussion of billing system and charge-back in Australia

* On-net vs. off-net dialing plans. Provide dedicated T1 for off-net calling? Capacity is not really an issue.

* Suggestion to survey testbed participants to monitor usage.

Action item: email institutions on the testbed to ask about their usage. Could collect CDRs from gatekeepers to gather data.

* Gatekeeper peering discussion

- Multicast not really possible. Decide upon hierarchy, not unlike DNS (local DNS refers to root DNS) Root GK ? multiple Campus GKs?

- Interoperability with video services? Challenge of interoperability between different standards. ViDe work with directory services (300 members) doesn't scale for 20,000 phones. Combine two plans. Gatekeeper hierarchy does work (Egon's international dialing plan) Version 3.3 (beta) supports more interoperability.

- Australia also supports a number of Asian institutions.Gatekeeper peering maps NNX to IP addresses of gateway. Uses wildcards to attach zone prefix.

* Send email to enyeart@indiana.edu to participate in testbed. Provide your IP domain name, blocks of numbers you want routed, IP number of your PBXs or Gateway(s) and the directory number of one or more phone numbers for troubleshooting. Cost: Cisco gatekeeper $12,000 or gateway $18,000. Other vendors may be less.

Cisco Offer:

* Extended to 31 December 2002

* Available to Internet2 members only

* 50% discount on packages (up to 90% on software)

* Does not include gateway

* Cisco direct is preferred

* International participation encouraged

SIP activities:

* Cisco PSTN gateway products support both H.323 and SIP

* SIP sub-group beginning to explore duplicating testbed using SIP

* When are we going to see more vendor support?

* Pingtel beta installations: MIT, TAMU, Boston University, U. Michigan, (one more?)

* Project lead by Dennis Baron MIT (dbaron@mit.edu) who will report progress at February Joint Techs meeting (January, Miami).

* Ben T. setting up eDial box to support Internet2 conference calls (POTS or SIP)

Measurement Discussion:

* Action: Look at use of Multicast Beacon as possible use as a VoIP Beacon. (get URL for multicast beacon).

* Ixia's IXuPP program. Can be used to gather VoIP signatures. TAMU has one of their measurement boxes.

* Data impairment that impact VoIP - develop best practices. Loki - Jalaam technologies. VoIP testing equipment, what metrics do people want to see in a monitoring tool?

* What gatekeeper problems exist?

* How does packet loss affect VoIP quality. QoS WG has draft white paper on web site summarizing relationship between voice quality and network performance.

VoIP Workshop(s):

* First one at TAMU last May

* VoIP in-depth tutorials at Boulder Joint Techs (July 2002)

* Planning next workshop for Indiana Member Meeting (Fall 2003)

* Shall we support virtual participation for these workshops?

* What to do in conjunction with Spring Internet2 Member Meeting?

* What about scheduling something around an ACUTA meeting?

New UCAID WG Requirements:

* More formal interactions, written reports required, etc.

* Internet2 support: "scribe", "flywheel"

* Must set milestones

* Internet2 is establishing a digital library. WG materials will go in there.

Demos:

* What about organizing a VoIP demo at next internet2 meeting? Could set up and demonstrate testbed throughout meeting. Let meeting attendees use phones to call wherever they want. Provide phones (hard and soft / SIP and H.323) for testing. Could set up calling stations in a public area of meeting. Load softphones on
laptops with wireless?

ENUM:

* What about ENUM? Perhaps an item for the SIP testbed? (More of a following in Europe?) Also in Australia. Would like to participate in ENUM testbed (possibly remotely).

Mailing List:

* The group should make better use of mailing list.

* Vendors monitor the list. Use list as opportunity to give input to vendors