What are some of the current issues being worked on?
Availability/Reliability/Redundancy - Telephone systems are 99.999% available
and people have come to expect that.
Data networks, and therefore Voice-over-IP, are not that reliable yet. Redundant IP networks
and other components must be consistently implemented to make them as reliable as
telephone systems.
E911 Service - When you dial 911 on a regular telephone, the system
delivers the number and usually the name of the owner of the telephone that made the
call. This same service is available on VoIP telephone systems and works correctly
if the location of the telephone set was entered correctly when the phone was set up.
Security - VoIP is
more prone to malicious activities since systems on IP networks are more
vulnerable than systems on telephone networks. People expect a high degree of
security in telephone use.
Quality of Service - Telephone systems today set up a temporary but
dedicated link between the two parties who are speaking. In contrast, IP networks
do not have dedicated network capacity and therefore the quality may become poor
or stop altogether if another device uses a substantial amount of bandwidth on the
IP networks between the two parties.
Troubleshooting - VoIP is complicated because all of the
intricacies of IP networking are added to the telephone system. For at least
the next few years, traditional telephone systems will not disappear. Rather,
IP telephone capabilities will be integrated to work with them.
