Before the Dawn of IP Telephony - Part 8Successful presentation (September 1997)
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 research paper on VOICEHUB was selected by an international academic conference called ISS for a presentation in Toronto, Canada. Although we were relaxed at first, we felt the tension build gradually as the day of the presentation came upon us.
On September 25th, the day of our presentation had finally come. Manager Mr.Konishi and I had barely slept the night before. At 5am, we left the hotel to the symposium. The convention center where the symposium was to be held was 15 minutes from the hotel on foot. We walked in silence for the entire time. Like the title, the road had the dimness of "before dawn."
Will we be able to make our statements clearly? Will people even listen? Such worries and mixed feelings occupied our minds. I had a glimpse of the faces of the people related to the project in my mind: Department Manager Mr. Sekine who was the first person to speak of the planning of VOICEHUB in August 1995, Manager Mr. Chimura. Assistant Manager Mr. Izumi the coauthor of the academic paper that became the base of this presentation. All these faces flashed before my eyes. I'll just do the best I can. I decided to go forward with the presentation without worrying about the outcome.
The atmosphere during the presentation
Photo 1 : The cover of our presentation
The session we presented was an interactive session, and a 45-minute presentation was repeated four times (photo 1). Mr. Konishi was in charge of the first and third presentations, and I was in charge of the second and forth. The hall had an audience capacity of less than 100. Some of the popular sessions had standing audiences. On the other hand, empty seats were noticeable during our presentation. Fortunately, the front rows were filled during the last session with very little empty seats visible from where I was standing while making the presentation.
It was far from a huge success. During the first and third presentations made by Mr. Konishi, I was able to observe the crowd while switching slides. Some stared in mid-air frowning, some nodded. Overall, the reaction was quiet. Questions were sparse and never reached anything worth debating. Perhaps it was our level of English.
The concept of voice over an IP network was far from the industry trend of that time. It remains a fact that our presentation was heretical. Maybe that is why researchers investigating the trend ignored us. But as we completed the final presentation, we were saved by such comments as, "That was nice presentation" from some of the people.
We were aware that our presentation was far from good no matter what people said. But we were sure that we had achieved something. When the presentation was finished, we received individual questions. I remember a person from a telecommunications carrier in Europe inquiring whether the quality was good enough for practical application that I felt as if I were being cross-examined.
On the other hand, some showed interest. There were some people — though very little — that made comments like, "This will be big," or "Let's do business together." Some stopped in front of the references and eagerly made notes, or took photos. I believe that by having a VOICEHUB in operation for the presentation paid off in convincing the people.
Photo 2 : ISS Compendium of Abstracts
When looking at the Compendium of Abstracts (photo 2), there are very few presentations related to VoIP even by overseas presenters. Our presentation was considered much more heretical. In retrospect, I feel that the presentation was a leading part of the integration between information and communication.
Here, I will introduce the points of interest and concerns indicated by the visitors.
1. Is it really working?
There were such questions as, "Is this presentation a concept?" and "To what extent is the device operating?" The main question from those with detailed interest was, "Is the quality at a practical level?"
I believe that technologies of VoIP were examined at the time of 1997 at IETF, etc. Voice quality was a major issue, and a level inferior to conventional telephones was what interested people the most.
I explained that VOICEHUB was operating at a practical level, providing real communications among numerous offices. People reacted well to this. I was able to answer with confidence since VOICEHUB was operating as a telephone system, linking several hundred bases at the time the presentation was made.
2. Use of a DNS server
This question was unexpected. Many people were interested that DNS was used to acquire IP addresses from phone numbers.
At the time, the concept of solving addresses using DNS was probably new. When searching the Compendium of Abstracts, we were without doubt the only one who made a clear indication of DNS in the few research papers touching on the subject of VoIP. Perhaps, the communications industry lacked the imagination for integrating communication and information.
3. Establishing communication quality among offices
There was high interest in establishing voice quality for communication among offices. The interest was probably aroused due to the fact that the product was already commercialized and in operation. After describing the method, we explained our concept within the presentation as indicated below. I believe we succeeded in convincing the audience.
"IP networks are rapidly growing and so is the traffic. Transmission bandwidth of networks is headed toward broadband. In the midst of such changes, it is impossible to predict the performances of networks with such dynamic changes. When adding chronological elements to the equation, various situations must be presumed such as minimal jittering, major jittering, latency, etc. I firmly believe that the method we are proposing will have a major impact on voice communications over IP networks."
The integration of information and communication was reflected strongly at ISS 1997, and it was said to be the last symposium of the century giving hopes to a new generation. Although VoIP was not the trend of the industry at the time, there were certainly those who saw the possibilities. When looking at the state of IP telephony of last year, I am grateful that I was given the opportunity to make such a presentation at the time, and I am very proud for being a part of the project.
... To be continued
