Before the Dawn of IP Telephony - Part 9What awaited us after the presentation
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 presentation at the internal symposium called ISS held in Toronto, Canada during September 1997 ended with somewhat of a success.
Photo 1 : Photo immediately after the presentation at ISS
Konishi on far left and author on far right
We felt tremendous weight off of our shoulders as the presentation at ISS was finished (photo 1). We received words of appreciation from many, starting with people participating in the symposium. However, there were also adverse reactions upon our return to Japan from some regarding why we had made such a presentation.
To the eyes of those with criticizing remarks, VOICEHUB must have been a product that would make enemies of telecommunication carriers that are regarded as important clientele. In the domestic communications industry at the time, widespread deployment of ISDN was just starting. Even for OKI, delivery of ISDN related products to telecommunication carriers was a major business. Under such circumstances, our presentation using the word "VoIP" may have had a revolutionary ring to it.
Especially, many found the statement of "I firmly believe there will come in time a world of VoIP" to be inflammatory, and thus causing controversy. Our firm belief was based on the result of honest thinking. If communication lines can be effectively used with VoIP, we believed the generation of IP telephony is a matter of time once the cost of devices drop and quality is established.
At the time, however, telecommunication carriers never dreamed of providing calls at cheaper rates using VoIP. Their viewpoint was fixed on increasing the efficiency of communication within the company, and use of dedicated lines provided by communication carriers were considered as communication infrastructures for outside communication.
The concept originates from the fact that voice communication will be integrated with data networks just as PCs will become the common tool for deskwork in offices. In such a way, our presentation was in no way rejecting the infrastructure of telecommunication carriers. Regardless of the fact, we received much criticism from within the company. Thus, we had to continuously explain the primary theme of the presentation at ISS to the accusing members.
The details of explanation made at the time are summarized below.
Primary theme of presentation at ISS
The conceptual diagram (Fig. 1) explaining that lines within and outside offices should be separated is the section where the primary theme is indicated most clearly among the materials presented.
Fig. 1 : Excerpt from the ISS lecturing materials
Diagram explaining that lines within and outside the office should be separated. IASVC within the diagram is the VoIP device.
At any rate, what we were focusing on was establishment of voice quality. As described many times in this series, I believe that establishment of voice quality is the major key to the dissemination of IP telephony, and our concept was based on providing maximum voice quality by firmly grasping the environment. At the time, LAN had become popular within corporate offices and network environments with speed of 10M ~ 100Mbps were becoming more common. Although many LAN used hubs, we paid close attention to the trend of LAN switches. (Port unit cost made a steep drop when entering 1997 and use of broadband within offices increased rapidly.)
Since broadband cannot be established for dedicated lines among offices due to the high cost, there is the need to establish quality based on narrow band. Hence, I protested that technical viewpoints for establishing voice quality was totally different and that the two should not be considered based on the same grounds. They must be viewed upon from their respective viewpoints and efforts are to be made for the optimal method of securing quality in each environment.
For example, switches exchanging information within an office are LAN switches and thus efforts on a MAC layer are possible. Since use of a broadband environment is possible, we simply placed emphasis on "how accurately waves are sent" by passing signals uncompressed, regardless of whether the signal is a fax, modem or voice. And such technical methods were introduced in the presentation.
Among offices, however, there is the need to effectively use narrow band. Hence, the use of various methods was recommended depending on the signal attribute (Fig. 2).
Fig. 2 : Excerpt from ISS lecturing materials
Since the bandwidth among offices is narrow, various efforts are needed.
The latter concept of effectively utilizing narrow band among offices is the base for the VoIP gateway concept, and the former concept of utilizing broadband within an office ties in with the concept of IP-PBX extension. VoIP gateway has already been commercialized with BS1100-VOICEHUB, employing the VoIP technology of narrow band introduced in Part 6.
Later, IP-PBX is commercialized in 2000 as "IPstage." OKI developed two types of VoIP technologies for broadband and narrow band, and we firmly believe that these technical assets will change in various shapes to provide superior sound. But that will be introduced later.
Following events
By the above explanation, we were somehow able to convince in-house members that our presentation was not intended to deny devices geared toward telecommunication devices, which was the main pillar of our business. Even so, our attempt to make major reform by integrating information with the world of communication remains unchanged.
Photo 2 : Operations Dept. Manager Harushige Sugimoto
People such as Operations Department Manager Sugimoto (photo 2) that promoted the business of VOICEHUB by adopting "integration of information and communication" as the slogan during 1997 are a rare breed. When looking at the entire Communication Operations Department, the intention of actively promoting VoIP was basically non-existent.
In April 1998, nearly six months later following the presentation at ISS, something incredibly innovative for me and even OKI occurred.
... To be continued
