SIP Forum’s FoIP Interop Workshop
The SIP Forum is responsible for good works such as the SIPit interop events, the SIPconnect SIP-trunking recommendation, and now T.38 interoperability. The first SIP Forum “T.38 Interoperability Workshop” was held on November 10 at the San Francisco W Hotel, which is across the street from the Moscone Center, site of the recent VoiceCon event. The four-and-one-half-hour meeting was attended by technical representatives of vendors serving the carrier and enterprise, as well as a smattering of service providers. Position papers were presented by AEMcom srl, Omnitor AB, and Commetrex. If you’re interested, the papers are posted at SIP Forum
A consensus quickly emerged that there were no significant T.38-interoperability problems. The problems seemed to be centered on the performance of some T.38 implementations, T.38 carrier uptake, and SIP-trunking accessibility. Between 2002 and 2004, Commetrex’ T.38 Interoperability Test Lab did a lot to advance interoperability. But that’s not the same as performance, which is an implementation’s ability to withstand the vagaries of the open Internet. Among the vendors, there seemed to be a division between those that were successful over the Internet and those that weren’t. Among the latter, there was even a question about T.38 itself, and whether it could achieve its aim of sending error-free faxes over the Internet. It was noted that the backbone IP carriers are finally building T.38 into their infrastructure, mainly by deploying Sonus GSX gateways, but many of the access providers—the legions of VoIP service providers—have yet to adjust by offering SIP trunking and handing off to T.38-only partners. Interested? Email Mike Coffee at or call him at 770-407-6021.
