The Jeff Pulver Blog: Guest Blogger: Carl Ford on "Feature Interaction"

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June 02, 2006

Guest Blogger: Carl Ford on "Feature Interaction"

A few years ago we had a great deal of controversy in the Pulver Report when we were discussing the threat of feature interaction when managing call control. A noted IETF friend was of the opinion, that the world wide web model was an accurate portrayal of the future. That call control would find its way to the appropriate application server (by proxy ;<) ). From there features and functions would be available.

In a recent video interview with Aswath Rao, we discussed the misleading statements that VoIP and IMS had changed the rules and may it so that anyone can control the call. When looking at the world wide web. The web servers are incredibly good at getting the information processed locally, importing external resources and pushing to the end point features that are desired. So the question is, "Can call control work on the same model as the web?"

I am sure that many are saying yes, right now but look at some basic issues. Call Transfer has been a problem for SIP, and a sticking point for Skype's API. For all the talk about new features, all too often truth is the phone gets the sizzle from bells and whistles and less from actually call processing. Don't believe me? Consider Phone "Pimping" Ringtones! I rest my case.

Long ago I suggested that Intelligent Networks had some nice breakpoints for feature interactions to be managed effectively. It was a starting point that they call (0.0) which also was the market acceptance of the idea. It would be nice if the circuit world and the internet world could meet at these points and do some features that truly take us by surprise. Like forking "find me - follow me" features. Or making call transfer a network catch and release feature. Best yet Disaster Recovery features that enabled redirection in case of emergency.

Like Instant Messaging, we maybe heading for a Skype network, and a world of SIP networks that maintain their island status. If someone told me ten years ago, we would be still using the PSTN for interoperability in 2006 I would have laughed in their face. Yet "peer" is not a term I would associate yet with interoperability, only self discovery within a given network. We may be heading to the equivalent of an Internet full of closed networks. The traffic indicates this is our future. It will be sad to say that I remember when I could reach anyone, anywhere on the PSTN and did not have to belong to their network to find them in a directory and call them.

I expect some flames and would love to hear from everyone. I will be available for a group lunch at Fall 2006 VON on Wednesday September 13th to listen to the community. Please contact me. I would also welcome anyone who wants to podcast with met to send a reply.

Carl Ford, Community Developer and VP Content, pulvermedia

At pulvermedia, Carl Ford is a Community Developer, looking to enable business development and customer contact between companies. He also develops the content for pulvermedia conferences and is a highly interactive program moderator. As a pulverite he serves as an advisor to several companies in various degrees. Ford's professional career includes 20 years at telecommunications companies such as Telcordia Technologies and Verizon. He has worked in positions including Costs, Operations, Marketing, Regulatory, and Product Management. His accomplishments include architecting and product-managing a carrier-grade billing mediation device for softswitches that was compatible for ILEC billing systems; and moderating the development of the pulver.com CDR for Internet Telephony, enabling VOIP gateways to be used with carrier billing systems.

Tags: VoIP, SIP, Aswath Rao, Carl Ford