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IBM Linux Business Technology

IBM To Run VoIP On Linux 198

Posted by timothy from the packetized dept.
hrhsoleil writes "Johnny Barnes, IBM's vice president of global IT solutions and standards, told attendees at a TechTarget conference this week that his company plans to migrate at least 80% of its more than 300,000 employees to voice over IP by 2008. The project will replace approximately 900 PBXs around the world with regional IP installations. IBM's server-based IP telephony platform is going to run on Linux."
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IBM To Run VoIP On Linux More

IBM To Run VoIP On Linux

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  • IBM converting employees? (Score:5, Funny)

    by MikeDawg ( 721537 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:37PM (#7422630) Homepage Journal

    So. . . IBM is converting its employees to VoIP

    Sounds interesting, I hope this is done in a humane way.

    • Your cake is just like my mom...
    • The project will replace approximately 900 PBXs around the world with regional IP installations. IBM's server-based IP telephony platform is going to run on Linux.

      IBM makes its money from selling server equipment. They arent taking sides in the holy war, they are just using Linux as a vehicle to drive their hardware sales. Why not use a vehicle in which other people are doing most of the work for you?

      IBM and Linux - its just a business decision.

    • SCO: "So how about we convert your servers over to something that isn't Linux, and we'll make it worth your while?"

      IBM: "How about I give you the FINGER.. .. ... and use Linux for even MORE great things!"

      SCO: "How can you give me the finger when you... have... no.. hands?"

      Err, whatever. }:) Carry on...
    • It's just VoIP, of course it's humane.

      It's not like they're migrating them to Eunuchs or anything.

  • Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company (Score:4, Insightful)

    by silentbozo ( 542534 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:39PM (#7422642) Journal
    How is IBM going to handle irate state-owned telecos who are suddenly deprived of IBM monies? Will they grease the wheels with payola (less than they were paying for phone calls) or will Big Blue just tell them to go take a hike? Interested businesses want to know... is it safe for anyone to try and get around the monopolies now, or is it just safe for IBM?

    Hell, here in the good old USA the "regulators" are already clamoring over the loss of all that free money that they've been siphoning out of our checkbooks. I can't imagine a state OWNED monopoly from doing any differently...
    • Try the Phillipeans... VoIP is illegal.

      Won't IBM have fun installing it there.
    • How is IBM going to handle irate state-owned telecos who are suddenly deprived of IBM monies?

      IBM is replacing in-house PBX systems. The telcos will still get their money from PSTN and data trunks.

    • > How is IBM going to handle irate state-owned telecos who are suddenly
      > deprived of IBM monies?

      IBM is using linux for VoIP. This has nothing to do with phone companys.

      • Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company (Score:1, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It does. Presumably phone company x gets granted a monopoly on phonelines on condition that it provides them to anyone who wants one - the effect is some (unprofitable e.g. middle-of-nowhere) lines are subsidsed by the majority profitable ones. If a significant proportion of the profitable lines are abandoned in favour of voip, the teleco gets upset.
        Alternatively the teleco was really a stealth tax, and the gov doesn't want it side-stepped.
        • > If a significant proportion of the profitable lines are abandoned in favour of
          > voip, the teleco gets upset.

          But you cant replace a phone line with a protocol to no-where.
          You still need a PSTN connection if you plan on talking to other peoples phones.

          I cant see IBM cutting their phones off from the rest of the world, and no longer accepting any phone calls. Why do you think this is what they will do? that would be very stupid, for any company do give up their phone presence.

          • If a significant proportion of the profitable lines are abandoned in favour of voip, the teleco gets upset.

            The poster obviously doesn't understand what enterprise VOIP is all about. Actually, there are two different things going on, and people often confuse the two.

            1. VOIP - send voice protocols over IP. So, instead of paying for a tie line between two of my campus locations, I route voice from my PBX across my wide area data circuits to my other location and terminate onto another PBX. This is all about
      • RTFA:

        that his company plans to migrate at least 80% of its more than 300,000 employees to voice over IP by 2008. The project will replace approximately 900 PBXs around the world with regional IP installations. IBM's server-based IP telephony platform is going to run on Linux.

        Pay attention: the primary news is about moving to VoIP. And a secondary remark is bout using Linux for it.

        The parent point was about the primary part of the news: moving so many PBXs from PSTN to VoIP will cut the profit of PSTN

        • Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company (Score:4, Interesting)

          by dissy ( 172727 ) on Saturday November 08, 2003 @12:01PM (#7424216)
          > The parent point was about the primary part of the news: moving so many PBXs from
          > PSTN to VoIP will cut the profit of PSTN providers, specifically from long
          > distance calls. The questions is: what are they going to do about it? Do they
          > afraid a potential death of "long distance call" industry?

          Yes, I know this. Aparneltly you and the parent poster (and most of the replys Ive read) dont understand the difference between a PBX and the PSTN.

          Think of a PBX as a network switch, or a NAT device.
          Then think of the PSTN as the Internet.

          (Ok horid comparisons but go with me on this for a sec)

          Now, basically what you are saying is "If you replace your home switch/NAT device, with another one, wont your ISP get pissed off that you are by-passing them for internet access?"
          Now you can see, you still would need an ISP to get to the internet, and having a number of computers connected to a switch has nothing what so ever to do with the internet, even thou the possibility of being connected to the internet is there.

          If you have a PBX, you still need to conect to the PSTN if you plan on making calls to any other phones on the PSTnetwork.

          I can't see IBM chaning from older PBX to newer VoIP technology, and then for no reason what so ever disconnecting from the PSTN and not paying the phone company. Noone would be able to call IBM, and they couldnt call out!

          Now a little network leason.

          I'm sure you have heard of what a T1 is. A T1 is a type of service (NOT a type of line/connection) which most people dont make that distinction.
          The physical line is called a DS1. A DS1 is 24 B channels (Each B channel is 64k/sec of bandwidth)
          A DS0 is one channel (ISDN has one or two of these), a DS1 is 24, and a DS3 is 720 B's (I think, a DS3 is 30 DS1's)
          So, a DS1 is the line. When you use all those B channels as one data line, the DS1 is called a T1. But a T1 is not the only option.
          You can also keep those 24 channels seperate, and in this case the DS1 is called a PRI. With this setup, you generally turn up one or more of these 24 channels each as its own phoneline, so you can get 24 phonelines.
          Due to switching, this isnt exactly acurate. You either set the PRI to have 24 channels of 56k each, or 23 channels of 64k. The extra space is used for signaling. If you are doing voice, or analog dialup for an isp, you can go with 24 chanels of 56k.. the extra 8k is switching.
          Or you can just reserve one whole channel for switching, and use the remaining 23 at their full 64k and do all of voice, analog dialup, and additionally ISDN dialup. For voice, one generally uses 24 chans at 56k, as a phone line wont use much more than 8-16k of bandwidth anyways, and specifically for a phone system, modems dont come into play.

          Now back to why I typed all that.

          If you have say 3 offices, one being the main office. You get a number of PRI's into the building for your PSTN connection, each PRI giving you 24 phone lines.
          Then you get a T1 connection from that office to the other two.
          The PBX is able to route calls over the T1's between offices, and then route however is needed to get to the PRIs when someone needs to use an external line.

          PBX's ususally use their own wierd data format, so an entire T1 is wasted on this one function. (IP is not running over it)

          With VoIP, they can either use existing point-to-point IP links (Im sure IBM has faster than a single T1 internal links between offices already) and just use those. They can also take that T1 they had before and convert it to IP, or just get rid of it if they have much faster bandwidth already (IE a T3 or better)

          The links between offices are ALREADY being provided by the phone companys.
          It really depends if they continue to use their dedicated phone links with IP, or if they cancel those lines to use existing backbone connections they already have for IP. That will be the ONLY change the phone company would see.

          VoIP just adds more
          • Shoot, also forgot to note that IBM had a global network before they sold it off to AT&T, even has its own Class A network. So they probably already route all their calls internally over this network. They also have their own 7 digit internal phone numbers. I have a feeling that their internal phone and network system is more advanced than most countries, they (we) have been doing networking for a really long time.

            andy
      1. There aren't many state-owned phone companies left in the world due to "Structural Adjustment Programs"
      2. Where there are State-Owned Telcos, IBM will probably be paying them for internet connectivity
      3. This is really just a sign to sell stock in companies that produce PBX equipment but not VoIP servers/handsets

      OpenH323 [openh323.org] for more info about VoIP PBX whatevers... or GnomeMeeting [gnomemeeting.org] for a client so you can start getting your hands dirty now...

    • Well making Internal changes should do nothing but Demonstrate Prices are far too high for Voice services... When they can impliment something that does the job for less money...

      After all Not much can Stop IBM unless they start to see services on the VOIP system they are putting in.


    • The Telcos own all the fiber in the ground anyways. Just instead of charging them for voice it will all be Data. But you bring up a good point. I wouldn't be surprise if telcos start lobbying for tarrifs on VoIP. like they did when the interenet started getting popular.
    • I believe that if the company uses it for internal stuff (no external calls) then different laws apply. Yes, it could still be illegal, but company2company comunications are a different beast than public VoIP. IBM has it's own 100% private network for all corporate stuff, there is no chance of communications beign intercepted by third parties.

  • Proof the IP6 is dead!! (Score:5, Funny)

    by jackb_guppy ( 204733 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:40PM (#7422643)
    With this method you only have to dail up to 12 digits to get another phone!! Not our normal 10.

    So IP6 will never happen!!!

    You try to dail let alone a girl's number of:
    ab:df:00:23:d4:e5:wh:yi:am:st:il:lt:yp:in:gt: hi:s.
    • You're either quite stupid, or make horrible jokes. VoIP interfaces to the regular telephone system and is transparent to the phone handset, giving you a ten-digit number like you're used to. And as to the economics of it, I think it's good. It's not going to hurt the telcos any, they gouge everyone else enough. Besides, it might not even change the services they buy anyway. I'd bet that IBM has fast fiber trunks to most of the larger facilities which just digitize everything anyway, and they're probably p
    • SIP addresses are like e-mail addresses sipuser@host.com I think is this much easier to remember even compared to POTS numbers!
    • No wonder you're having problems. Over half of that address is using invalid hex codes. You can only use 0-9, and a-f.
    • I think that IP will be the next "Phone Number". Someday, someone is going to offer your cable, phone, and HSI all on one connection. Or more likely the content is going to be merged to being more "online". Voice and the internet are starting to take off, how long until we get on demand video from sat or cable?
  • This may be a dumb question but....

    As more and more of our traditional communications mediums move onto IP, won't it be easier for crackers to comproomise these things?

    For example, it may be difficult for a cracker to get his hands on a pbx let alone a working environment to do his "R & D" in. But as eveything moves to using really common standards, it gets pretty easy to test this stuff in his mom's basement or whatever...

    "Hello, this is the operator." Is it?

    • Good point, and not to throw in the Lin/win debate, but I think that they more than likely considered this and it is why they have chosen an open source solution. They can author, patch, admin and TRUST their own work, on their own system.

      I wonder also with the drop of the PBX's will IBM become or position itself to become a baby bell in it's own right. Just a thought.

    • Interesting point. I wonder if any research has been done on this topic.
    • In general I think that script-kiddy type hackers would have more of a chance at getting the data. However, one would expect any important communications to happen within an encrypted channel.

      One thing to note is that moving internal networks (phone, computer, etc) over to IP is not the same as putting all of these things onto the Internet.

    • Re:Everything moving on to ip (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Tailhook ( 98486 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:58PM (#7422723)
      As more and more of our traditional communications mediums move onto IP, won't it be easier for crackers to compromise these things?

      At the scale IBM is talking about here; 900 PBXs worldwide, don't you think it's already closely mated to their IP network? How do you suppose they manage all those phones and voicemail? Who makes those PBXs and how well are they maintained? 10 year old firmware revisions and crappy 4 character universal passwords remotely accessible through unencrypted terminal emulation, probably. Half a dozen different vendors involved too, most likely.

      Odds are the system is already vulnerable to anyone with marginal PBX technical expertise. At least now they'll have a very contemporary platform that is up-to-date and easy to keep that way.

      Look, PBXs are the ultimate evolution of manual switchboards. It's legacy stuff and it needs to die. Moving low quality noise around does not justify proprietary hardware.
    • As more and more of our traditional communications mediums move onto IP, won't it be easier for crackers to comproomise these things?

      Well, yeah, it'll just be easier to find VoIP servers.

      In general, though, it probably will not be as bad as you're thinking. VoIP is not a new technology, and the security issues with it are well understood.

      That's why many of the protocols have security measures built in. In addition, because it's IP, you can use IPSec and other protocols for IP security.

      For example,



      • You do know why the original phreaker was called "Captain Crunch", right


        Yes, I do know why. [hyperbole] But my concern is more with the number of captain crunches who's boxes of Frosted Linux Charms come with a free tcpdump or other whistles which might monitor or alter traffic lights, news broadcasts, telephone conversations, atm transactions, etc. [/hyperbole]
    • "Hello, this is the operator."

      Tank, I need an exit.

      um, sorry, had to.
    • So how do you actually convince your company and/or cohorts to make this conversion? Or even do some trials or testing?

      I'm not trolling here. I work for a large company in the medical business, and I can't even get anybody to take an interest in this kind of stuff. And I'm an alpha geek here! My phone guy couldn't care less. Our CIO wouldn't know a VOIP connection if it jumped up and bit him. "Phone" here means "tip and ring" and no one seems to care whether we spend a bazillion bucks every month pay
      • Well cost savings is really the big bang of VoIP. If your company is rolling in the dough so much that they don't care what they spend I can't see how you get them to pay attention. IMO VoIP is ideal for companies with multiple locations in which the employees call each other all the time. All those calls can now go over IP and never generate a bill.

      • So how do you actually convince your company and/or cohorts to make this conversion? Or even do some trials or testing?

        I went to the COO with a white paper showing potential areas of costs savings. He brought in the CFO and they gave me resources and billing codes (necessary, we are a systems integrator, all techie folk have to produce billable work) so I could run research and analysis into the viability of IPTel and VoIP for our company. He also held a meeting with the telecom specialists and the netw

    • comproomise
      Kanga? Is that you? God I miss your pouch.
    • VoIP may usher in a new golden age of phreaking!

      Instead of beige boxing, young phreakers will now cut their teeth using a laptop running AirSnort.
      And the inductive probe will find new uses, for sure.

      Hey, you just brightened my day! Thanks!

  • SCO + Phone Companies = Lawsuits! (Score:5, Funny)

    by joeszilagyi ( 635484 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:48PM (#7422681)
    So, how long until Darl McBride realizes he can team up with SBC, Verizon, et al to sue even more people?

  • Great stuff for linux! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jubalj ( 324624 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:51PM (#7422694) Homepage
    IBM's server-based IP telephony platform will run on Linux and provide gateways for connection to the public switched telephone network (PSTN) If the IBM software is affordable/GPLd, this could mean another jump in the popularity of GNU/linux! oh.. n that VoIP thing too..
    • Is there any reason in particular to hope it will be affordable or open source?
      • I mean, I know why we would *hope* for it to be open source, it just doesn't sound like something somebody would want to give away.

      • A quick google search turned up IPTel.org [iptel.org]. They have GPL'ed IP Telephony packages, including a SIP router (for call routing) and software phones that run on Linux. I'm sure more investigation would yield more information. My company derives a large amount of income from running a call center. We get paid for active minutes on the phone. It was in our best interests, financially, to purchase a commercial IPTel system that would be guarunteed by the vendor and would have 24x7 onsite support. By the way, we se

    • If the IBM software

      It's probably OpenH323 [openh323.org]. IBM is smart, they wouldn't bother to re-invent the wheel ... err ... gateway

    • We don't actually even know if IBM will release the system to the public at all; it could be exclusively internal. Or, for that matter, they could be adopting someone else's system, which they'll deploy for their own use. Since they're looking at 2008, that's plenty of time for someone else to develop a suitable free software VoIP application, which they can just run.
    • The article didn't say anything about IBM writing VoIP software. IBM is probably just installing some off-the-shelf softswitches on Linux servers. Will it be free? As an example, IIRC Pingtel's softswitch starts at $10,000. I'm sure those Cisco Call Managers aren't cheap either.

  • IBM lives and breaths on their PBXes (Score:3, Interesting)

    by BoldAndBusted ( 679561 ) on Friday November 07, 2003 @11:53PM (#7422701) Homepage
    Since they are extremely decentralized, this is REALLY a gamble for them. Imaging half of IBM "winking out" when their PBX network dies. I'm happy that they are brave enough to do this, but I worry for Linux's reputation if it becomes a boondogle.
    • Just because they're dropping PBXs doesn't mean they're dropping redundancy or failover. If one of the call centers goes down (very rare if you have redundant providers, power), switcheroo to the other one - send staff over to the other location.

      We're exploring VoIP options, but for the time being I'm happy to let my telco provider take care of our voice and bandwidth needs.

  • not insignificant (Score:4, Insightful)

    by benjonson ( 204985 ) on Saturday November 08, 2003 @12:00AM (#7422732)
    2008 sounds like a long time away, like vague future planning. But big companies need to do long-range planning, and it is significant that IBM sees Linux as the operating system in that future. It is almost a done deal - when major corporations imagine Linux as central to the future, Linux becomes central to the future.
    • ... system in that future. It is almost a done deal - when major corporations imagine Linux as central to the future, Linux becomes central to the future.

      Well, yes and no. Linux (i.e., the kernel) is really just an instance of POSIX, and code that runs on linux will usually run on other POSIX systems with little more than a recompile. This now includes pretty much all the available unix-like systems, even those that call themselves "BSD".

      It's true that there are inevitably problems with drivers, but th
      • they favor it because of the advantages of a system with freely-available, license-free source.

        You made a convincing argument, right up until you admitted that you have no idea what you're talking about.

  • Shameless plug (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jmv ( 93421 ) on Saturday November 08, 2003 @12:13AM (#7422786) Homepage
    Of course I'm biased, but I hope the use an open-source codec [speex.org].

    • Re:Shameless plug (Score:3, Informative)

      by tulare ( 244053 )
      Heh. I use that codec pretty much daily on my linux box to do VOIP. My client of choice (which may tell something about my predelictions) is TeamSpeak [teamspeak.org] - a smallish app that will teach you how to configure alsa, but once it works, it works well - decent sound quality right there with POTS, doesn't use much bandwidth at all - if it did, my ping would be high... not something a gamer will tolerate... and light footprint. But damn! You've gotta tweak with your mixer to get it working =]. And forget about u
  • First the phone companies will fall. Which is good

    because they have been gouging for a long time

    then the cable companies hopefully. These two

    industries are in their twilight of existence.

    When Fiber to the curb happens with government

    municipals leading the way we will see the biggest

    revolution since the invention of radio and the

    telegraph. A big IF though is our government

    leadership supporting it and not supporting the

    dinosaur industries that keep us in the past.

  • What about encryption? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 08, 2003 @12:27AM (#7422847)
    Are the voip calls going to be encrypted?

    Vonage may not encrypt calls, but at least on the IBM end, until it reaches the demarc line, they should stand up and do the right thing and encrypt all their voip calls.

    Perhaps this will be the kick in the pants that everyone who is in love with voip needs.

    Transmitting voip calls over the internet is absolutely nuts without encryption. Forget about tapping a phone line with recording equipment. Now all you need is a minimal size hard drive, and standard apps available on all platforms to tap into and record "telephone" conversations.

    Don't forget that because wireless telephones aren't considered "secure" by courts, it doesn't require a search warrant, or line tap warrant to record the conversations. By using unencrypted voip, the bar is being lowered to no requirement for a search/line warrant for intercepting all voip phone conversations. And it looks like everyone, including the phone companies are migrating toward voip.

    There have been slashdot stories raising big stinks about echelon, about tia, and about the fight over the strength of encryption allowed as exports, encryption classified as munitions, storing encryption keys with the government/clipper, and big stinks have been raised about each of these stories. Yet I've only heard of one company that I can't recall the name of right now that is offering encrypted calls, and they said that if the government needs access, they can turn over the conversation, as they are the midpoint on the encryption, and all the packets are cached on their servers anyway...

    Where's the outrage over non-encrypted voip?

    • VPN (Score:2)

      by temojen ( 678985 )

      I strongly suspect that all IBM's inter-site IP traffic flows through Encrypted VPNs.

    • Encryption was the first thing I thought about, but for a different reason, it frustrates the efforts of foreign governments and competing businesses from eavesdropping on IBM. You can bet that, at least at the executive level, strong encryption will be available.

      As for the peons, yeah probably. IBM will want to sell this to other companies, after all. You can also be sure that IBM will cooperate fully with Uncle Sam to install the necessary weaknesses or back doors. After all, they've done so in the
    • Sure, public VoIP should eventually be encrypted. However, most networks are nicely built using switches, rather than hubs, so as long as the networks you pass have a trustworthy management there is little worry. And you can bet IBM does not intend to link their VoIP systems over public internet links. If only for the complete lack of QoS :-)
      • A switch will not stop someone from sniffing. Ever hear of ettercap? Someone else suggested that net/net on the Internet would likely be over IPSec. That is fine, but what about internally? That is where the real threat is, and always has been.

  • What? No one's mentioned.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by bflong ( 107195 ) on Saturday November 08, 2003 @01:12AM (#7422949)
    Asterisk: the open source software PBX [asterisk.org], which runs on Linux, and has a hardware company [digium.com] to back it up with support and equipment?
    • i've been lurking on the asterisk mailing lists for over a year. the project has really grown and picked up steam.. there was just a thread this week about people running it in production for businesses, including a cost analysis for some different implementation proposals.

      The idea is really brilliant, frankly. Early on asterisk i think was really geared towards doing VOIPPTSN gateway work, but it's really become a full featured PBX replacement. I plan on gutting the RJ11 wiring in my next home and runn
      • I see lots of hardware for the outside line connection, but how about the telephones?

        To be a PBX replacement, you should be able to interface to telephones. E.g. 100 or 200 of them.
        Maybe in some time such functionality will be handled by someone's PC, but for now everyone in the office has a telephone on his/her desk.
        • To be a PBX replacement, you should be able to interface to telephones. E.g. 100 or 200 of them.

          How about just using bluetooth-enabled phones?

          This sort of thing isn't all that new a concept. Back in the mid 1980's, I saw and used internal versions of phones via wireless modems at some Motorola sites where I was working. They had both voice and IP traffic going over the wireless system, and various parts of the "PBX" used TCP to transfer voice traffic. It was all very experimental, but much of it worke
          • A PBX that can only handle newfangled phones and no classic phones is not a realistic candidate for any company, except maybe for the smallest.

            Sure there are many nice gadgets, like phones that themselves do VoIP and PCs with phone capabilities, but in real life you will always need to connect normal telephones and extended-feature (function keys and display) phones, via two-wire point-to-point connections.

            Ignoring that will remove you from the list of candidates for the new PBX every time.

            • A PBX that can only handle newfangled phones and no classic phones is not a realistic candidate for any company, except maybe for the smallest.

              Now why on earth would I want to connect old technology to my new technology? My new technology can do everything the old stuff can, plus all of the new capabilities. Since we do need analog capabilities we put analog gateways in that convert the digital stream to analog and then you can connect traditional analog technology to that. Primarily we had some older a

        • To be a PBX replacement, you should be able to interface to telephones.

          Well, you can buy IP capable phones from a variety of sources. I'm sure that at least some of them are capable of interfacing with any call manager using QSIG and SIP. In fact, I'm almost positive that the Cisco phones don't care what call manager they interface with as long as the signaling comes in correctly. Software phones are convenient for those who travel or work remotely (at home for example) but they are not particularly conv

        • you get the T1 card and a 24 port FXS channel bank. Total cost - less than 4 digits

          Then you can set the line coding on a per port basis to handle normal pots phones, some vendors custom handsets, etc.

          you can get the quad span card and get 96 analog handsets on a single PCI board. Put multiple pci boards in a box and your port density is atrocious. multiple asterisk boxes can switch channels over ethernet, so you can get into multi-hundreds of ports very easily and quickly.

          Look into asterisk. It kicks

  • SCO v IBM, a game plan (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pair-a-noyd ( 594371 ) on Saturday November 08, 2003 @01:41AM (#7423009)
    This is just a ruse (shhhhh...) by IBM to bankrupt SCO. If SCO pays IBM to not use Linux by the gazillion truckloads, SCO goes bankrupt and Darl, being deprived of his crack allowance checks into the detox unit.
    End of lawsuit, end of lunatic newsbriefs..

    Awwwww....

  • no big deal - lots of VOIP runs on Linux (Score:3, Informative)

    by jhermans ( 108300 ) on Saturday November 08, 2003 @07:33AM (#7423530) Homepage

    I work for Alcatel Belgium (I work on the SMC 5735 RADIUS Proxy [alcatel.com], a part of the 5020 SoftSwitch), and I can assure you that quite a number of products run on Linux, for example our OmniPCXOffice [alcatel.com] products. And you might find even more in the future (can't comment on that).

    Other companies provide Linux based solutions too. And why not ? It's just an operating system. The fact that the Telecom companies are choosing Linux just proves that Linux is very stable. The actual fact that it's free has nothing to do with it (the cost for a license would be an extremely small part in the TCO).

    And no, it can't be downloaded for free, just because it's Linux. That the first question my friends alwasy ask. Most of the software is propriety, and often written for special hardware. And also extremly expensive ofcourse, otherwise who would pay for all those hundreds of engineers that are developing them ?

  • VoIP or IP Telephony (Score:4, Informative)

    by blaager ( 629751 ) on Saturday November 08, 2003 @09:23AM (#7423731)
    VoIP is NOT the same thing as IP Telephony, yet folks here seem to use it interchangeably. Is IBM doing one, the other, or both? It's impossible to tell from the post. Voice over IP is simply packetizing voice somewhere within the network, mostly likely between PBX's while the handsets stay traditional. IP Telephony means even the handsets talk IP and can packetize the voice. In other words, everything is IP. Please know the difference.

    • Is IBM doing one, the other, or both? It's impossible to tell from the post.

      From reading the article it is clear they are doing IP Telephony. IBM has been doing VOIP for years, just like every other Fortune 1000 has. But replacing 900 PBX with VOIP really means IP Telephony, but the guy writing the article doesn't know the difference so he calls it VOIP.

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