The SIP Forum (www.sipforum.org)
and the i3 Forum (www.i3forum.org)
announced a new testing program for Fax-over-Internet-Protocol (FoIP)
services, aimed at identifying and qualifying transmission impairments
and interoperability challenges that have arisen in IP-based networks as
the T.38 protocol has become more widely deployed across carrier and
enterprise network topologies. The first-of-its-kind testing program,
which will take place from September through December 2010, will bring
together a host of international communications carriers from North
America, South America, Europe, Asia and Middle East to examine global
FoIP communications. T.38 is the international standard that supports
the use of IP networks to transport real-time faxes.
“The unique cooperation between the SIP Forum and the i3 Forum is what
makes this testing program possible, as it brings together a diverse
group of equipment vendors and leading, international communications
carriers”
As an organization of international carriers, it is our primary
interest to rely on reliable Fax-over-IP interconnection. Fax is an
important service for our members customers, and as a result, we are
committed to solving the service reliability problems experienced while
migrating international interconnect to IP. We are sure that, on the
basis of the experience gained in this testing campaign with SIP Forum
FoIP Task Group, we can improve the IP interconnection implementation
time and save time and money presently devoted to troubleshooting and
bug fixing said Philippe Millet, Chairman of the i3 Forum.
The testing program will log fax calls between carriers, creating a
large database of detailed information about how IP fax calls are
handled amongst the program participants. More than a dozen carriers on
four continents have signed up to participate in the test and the SIP
Forum and i3 Forum will be accepting new participants well into the
fourth quarter of 2010.
The scope of vendors and carriers participation we have organized for
this test is truly unprecedented in the realm of the telecom industry.
The time has come to ensure that IP fax and application suites that
utilize FoIP, such as unified communications, continue to be rolled out
with the highest reliability and assured performance, said Mike Coffee,
CEO of Commetrex and Co-Chair of the SIP Forums FoIP Task Group. IP
fax communications has unique characteristics and special requirements
compared to VoIP traffic, and this testing program will give us a deeper
understanding of what is happening within the underlying network
infrastructure of each participating carrier and especially the
inter-carrier signaling of each IP fax call.
The SIP Forums FoIP Task Group and members of the i3 Forum will conduct
a thorough analysis of the data from the tests in early 2011, and
resulting recommendations regarding improvements to the current T.38
specification will be made to the appropriate standards bodies,
including the ITU-T and International Engineering Task Group (IETF).
The testing is also the first major initiative undertaken by the SIP
Forum/i3 Forum Partnership launched earlier this year.
The unique cooperation between the SIP Forum and the i3 Forum is what
makes this testing program possible, as it brings together a diverse
group of equipment vendors and leading, international communications
carriers, said Richard Shockey, Chairman of the Board of the SIP Forum.
We expect our combined resources to yield a considerable amount of
actionable data that will provide us with the intelligence we need in
order to improve the interoperability and reliability of fax
communications over IP networks, especially tandem networks something
that end-users around the world demand.
For more information about the work of the SIP Forums FoIP Task Group,
and to view or download copies of published documentation related to the
ongoing work on FoIP, visit www.sipforum.org/content/view/310/252/
or http://www.i3forum.org/library.
About the SIP Forum
The SIP Forums FoIP Task Group was first launched in late 2008 to
address the technical and interoperability challenges involving the
transmission of fax documents over a SIP-enabled network. The group
outlined some of the issues in the fall of 2009 in its FoIP Problem
Statement v.1.0, and more recently with the publication of the
T.38 SIP-SDP Problem Statement.
The FoIP Task Group leadership includes Mike Coffee, CEO of Commetrex,
and Gonzalo Salgueiro of Cisco, who serve as Task Group Co-Chairs; Marc
Robins, President and Managing Director of the SIP Forum; Max Schroeder,
Sr. VP. Faxcore, who serves as the Task Group Whip; and document editors
including Michael Chen, LSI Corporation, and Kevin P. Fleming, Director
of Software Technologies, Digium, Inc.
The SIP Forum is an IP communications industry association that engages
in numerous activities that promote and advance SIP-based technology,
such as the development of industry recommendations, the SIPit
interoperability and testing events, special interoperability workshops,
educational seminars, special interest groups, and general promotion of
SIP in the industry. One of the Forums notable technical activities is
the development of the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation a
standards-based recommendation that provides detailed guidelines for
direct IP peering and interoperability between IP PBXs and VoIP service
provider networks. The SIPconnect Compliant Certification Program is an
associated program through which eligible companies can gain SIPconnect
validation and the right to license the use of the SIP Forums
SIPconnect Compliant certification mark the official brand of the
leading standard for SIP Trunking products and services. Other important
Forum initiatives include work in Fax-over-IP interoperability, User
Agent Configuration, and the opportunities for SIP in Smart Grid
deployments. For more information, please visit: http://www.sipforum.org.
About the i3 Forum
The i3 Forum started in mid 2009 the analysis and study of Fax-over-IP
in the Technical Aspects WS, chaired by Alessandro Forcina, of Telecom
Italia Sparkle. The delivery of the first FoIP document addressing
technical specifications is planned by next October, with Jerzy
Soldrowsky, of Telecom Poland, as document editor and task leader.
The i3 Forum brings together the communications expertise of more than
37 telecommunications operators representing a combined retail base in
excess ofone billion customers in over 80 countries. The goal of the i3
Forum is to develop collaborative recommendations for an industry-wide
transition of voice and related services to Internet Protocol (IP). The
forums unified effort to expedite global IP-based voice implementation
will enhance worldwide communication by supporting widespread access to
innovative and high quality IP-based services and applications. For more
information, please visit: www.i3forum.org

Source: Business Wire