ITU : Future of Voice; Jan 2007
VoIP Peering and Federations the New Paradigm
Session 2: Innovation Dynamics in the
Telecommunication/ICT Sector
Eli Katz
Founder & CEO, XConnect
Co-Founder and Chairman,
Internet Telephony Service Provider Association (ITSPA)
eli@xconnect.net
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Consumer VoBB Transition Underway
IP Communications Service Provider
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Q4 2006
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MSOs (UPC-Liberty, CableVision)
Telcos (AT&T, Sprint, BT, FT)
ISPs (Earthlink); MNOs (T-Mobile)
New Entrants (Vonage, SunRocket)
PC (Skype, MSN, Yahoo)
30+ million 1st/2nd line users
100+ million PC-based IM users, 1520% using VoIP
Over 900 VSPs in 40+ countries
<1% - 10% market penetration
2010
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200 million line replacement users
200+ million PC-based VoIP users
70+ million dual-mode handsets
supporting VoIP
1000s of VSPs in 90+ Countries
• C. 35% penetration
250
1800
1600
1400
1200
1000
800
600
400
200
0
200
150
100
50
0
ITSPs
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Subscriber & ITSP Numbers
Subscribers
(millions)
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2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010
Primary Line
PC
Mobile
ITSPs
“It was the industry’s bread and butter for over a
century. But the end is now in sight for traditional
telephone service, which will soon be overtaken by
VoIP calls in terms of usage, and displaced by
broadband internet access as the core revenueearning service offered over fixed line by telecoms
firms. And if the traditional telephone is not quite
dead yet, its business model certainly is: metered
telephone alls whose cost depends on the length of
the call and the distance covered are becoming an
anachronism.”
The Economist, Oct 14 2006
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Lost on the IP Islands ?
MSO VoIP provider 1
VoBB Provider 2
Enterprise VoBB Provider 1
Enterprise X
NGN / IMS
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Inevitability of VoIP Peering
• Advanced IP Services & Features
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Video
Presence, Instant Messaging
Conference/N-way Calling
Wideband audio-codecs
Push-to-talk, Push-to-show
Fixed-Mobile Convergence
• Enhanced Security
• End-to-end encryption
REQUIRES END TO END IP – IP
TODAY “IP on-net” calls – within a single VoIP network (Island)
How do we Connect the Islands ?
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Interconnection :- SMS Case Study
SMS/person/
annum
In-Network
CrossNetwork
Change-Year
UK
3
400 (2000)
1998
USA
4
300 (2004)
2003
• Lessons
– Interconnection of networks to support new services is inevitable
– But that doesn’t stop large operators being short-sighted.
– It’s early for many Tier 1 operators, but not all…
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VoIP Peering: On-Net to the World
• Cost Reduction
• Disintermediate the PSTN & associated costs
• Revenue Generation – new IP Services
• Enable Mass Market adoption of new IP Services
• Video, Wideband, IM/Presence, Encryption
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Building Blocks of Peering
VoIP Peering is more than IP Peering
Physical Transport
Standard IP Peering / Connectivity
- Public, Private, Ethernet
Discovery / Location
(ENUM Registry)
Which calls terminate to another VSP,
and where should they be routed?
Signalling Interoperability
How can signalling interoperability be
ensured with different protocols,
variants & implementations?
Policy, Trust & Security
Who should calls be received from & on
what basis? How to protect subscribers
from abuse (SPIT, vishing)?
Media Handling
NAT traversal and codec incompatibility
Commercial
Based on policy and traffic profiles,
should calls be settlement-based or
settlement-free (Bill & Keep)?
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ENUM 2.0 – Bridge from PSTN# to IP
• ENUM 1.0
• User/Public ENUM ( Limited Market Acceptance )
• ENUM 2.0
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Private / Operator ENUM ( Internal )
Carrier ENUM ( Bi-Lateral Exchange )
Federation ENUM ( Multi-Lateral Exchange )
Infrastructure ENUM ( Non-Standard & Interim )
• Included in all NGN Standards
• CableLabs, 3GPP, IMS, Speermint
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How to Peer: Bilateral or Federated
• Bilateral VoIP Peering
• For small # of direct Interconnects
• Non-scalable due to Trust, Signalling,
Security, Commercial concerns
• IP Paradigm : Federation Model
• Scalable Direct Interconnection
• Neutral, Trusted Provider for
• ENUM Registry, Security, Identity, Policy
• Signalling Interoperability
• New Commercial Paradigms
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A Neutral, Trusted Federation Provider
• Protects Sensitive Data
• Eliminate need for open sharing of subscriber data between peers
• Guard security of sensitive data
• Resolves the N2 Interoperability Problem
• A single interoperability test to access to hundreds of peers
• Insulate VSP from changes made by peers
• Ensure highest level of feature-preservation on all calls
• Ensures Security
• Protect VSP and its subscribers from SPIT, vishing or other threats
• Management of the settlement-free relationship to avoid abuse
• Simplifies Contractual Issues
• A single contract
• Avoid billing and reconciliation nightmare
• Gives VSP Control
• Ability to set peering policies
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Federations – Industry Perspective
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Key Findings from Heavy Reading’s 8/13/06 report
"VOIP Peering & the Future of Telecom Network Interconnection"
• “A federated peering model will emerge as natural trading partners
come together in peering communities or federations…”
• “We expect the industry to emerge… in a federated peering model
with ENUM directories to support the community.”
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IETF (The Internet Standards Body) WG on SIP Peering
• “SPEERMINT Terminology” 8/11/06
• “a federation is a group of Service Providers which agree:
• To receive calls from each other via SIP
• On a set of administrative rules for such calls (settlement, abusehandling, ...), and
• On specific rules for the technical details of the interconnection.”
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GSM Operators Association (GSMA)
• Development of “IPX”, a federation for interconnection and exchange
of IP Communication services between IP Operators.
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Federations - A Tier One Perspective
• Recent conclusions of internal review by a
world leading Service Provider
• We must launch new services, e.g. video
• We cannot launch services successfully if only
available in-network
• Scalable Cross-network Interconnection can
only be multi-laterally (federation)
• We must involve mobile (3G) operators in
addition to other large fixed operators
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Federation & ENUM Activity
• MMS Routing in USA
• Neustar, Verisign
• Global VoIP Peering & ENUM Registry Providers
• XConnect, Telcordia, Neustar, Verisign, Arbinet
• National Peering
• Netherlands JCC ( October 2005) – full MSO Peering
• CableLabs RFI ( October 2006 )
• Multiple In-Country & Private Federations emerging
• GSMA
• IPX & ENUM (in all its 9 flavours)
• National Local Number Portability - LNP
• Changes in international markets - e.g UK
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Federation System Architecture
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XConnect – Background Info
• World’s leading neutral provider of VoIP Peering & Federation services
• History
• Established in 2005, a pioneer in the federated Enum & Peering services
• 400 IP Communication SPs in >35 Countries, 180 Million TNs in Registry
• Awarded world’s 1st (& Only) National VoIP Peering contract
• Market Consolidator - IPeerX Inc. (USA) and e164.info (Europe)
• Industry Strengths
• ENUM Registries, Signalling Inter-op, Private & Global Federations
• IPR on ENUM Privacy & SPIT protection
• Advisory Board includes leaders in IETF ENUM & SIP WGs.
• Awards
• 2006 Frost & Sullivan Award for VoIP Peering Services
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ITU : Future of Voice, Jan 2007
Eli Katz
Founder & CEO, XConnect
Co-Founder and Chairman,
Internet Telephony Service Provider Association (ITSPA)
eli@xconnect.net
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