Before the Dawn of IP Telephony - Part 29
Thinking of the broadband generation (fall 2002)
These contents translated a serialization article carried by ITPro IP telephony ONLINE published by Nikkei Business Publications, Inc. Jump to the original (Japanese).
Shinji Usuba
General Manager
eSound Venture Unit
Oki Electric Industry Co., Ltd
The development of the indoor device for telecommunication carriers was finally finished. The widespread deployment of broadband was starting and we were examining the business opportunities.
Photo 1: OKI's VoIP product group roadmap for latter half of 2002
After overcoming some technical troubles including the measure concerning the weakness discovered in the new device, the development of IP telephone devices for telecommunication carriers further accelerated in October 2002 (photo 1). It was about this time when I had no doubts that full IP and full broadband would reach the homes of subscribers in the not- too-distant future.
What will be created and what events will occur once incomparable speed is provided to the homes of subscribers? Is it our only job to keep developments going? Such thoughts ran through my head while staring at the indoor device that had reached shipment after all the efforts in the summer heat.
The world in general had not yet realized the true potential of VoIP. But I was certain of its capabilities. I wanted to maximize and expose such hidden potential. I was certain that there had to be a new VoIP technology more suitable for the broadband generation. Although there was an increase in the market performance with the shipment of indoor devices for telecommunication carriers doing well, I was beginning to feel frustrated as a developer.
I found out that Hiromi Aoyagi, who was in charge of signal processing at the time, was feeling the same, and my desire to establish a new technical direction grew even stronger. Hiromi and I pondered this idea during late hours of weekdays and on holidays. Although the project team was busier than ever, the members including Keiichi Busujima were able to participate since the project was self-directed. As a result, we came up with two hypotheses.
Giant switching equipment using "Gnutella"
The first is the "hypothesis of giant switching equipment using 'Gnutella'"
At the time "Napster" and "Gnutella" were among the popular topics as file sharing technologies. We focused our attention on Gnutella, which used a more genuine P2P (Peer-to-Peer) technology. We were pondering the idea of seamlessly creating a large system by connecting smaller systems on broadband lines in a form of a loop since hardly any time is taken for communication as networks reach enormous high speeds even when systems are connected serially.
Continued to next page: Improved communication quality...
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