Cybertelecom :: VoIP Index

Cybertelecom
Federal Internet Law & Policy
An Educational Project

Voice over IP (Internet Telephony)

Navigation Links:

- VoIP
- FCC
- State Activity
- International
Telecom Issues
- Access Charges
- ACTA Petition
- Blocking
- Inflexion Petition
- IP Enabled Services
- IP in the Middle
- Numbering
- Data Collection 706
- Power, Back up
- Pulver Petition
- SBC Forbearance
- Stevens Report
- Security
- Time Warner Petition
- Vonage
Social Issues
- 911
- Accessibility
- CALEA
- Privacy
- Universal Service
Notes
- ESPs / Info Service
- History
- Notes
- - Classification
- - definition.htm
- - Jurisdiction
- Statistics
Related Issues
- Intercarrier Comp
- ENUM
- Port Blocking
- Geolocation

:: Home ::
:: Feedback ::
:: Disclaimer ::
:: Sitemap ::

2.2 Overview of VOIP Data Handling

(From NIST, Security Considerations for VoIP Systems 800-58, p. 11 (April 2004))

"Before any voice can be sent, a call must be placed. In an ordinary phone system, this process involves dialing the digits of the called number, which are then processed by the telephone company's system to ring the called number. With VOIP, the user must enter the dialed number, but after that a complex series of packet exchanges must occur. The problem is that computer systems are addressed using their IP address, but the user enters an ordinary telephone number to place the call. The telephone number must be linked with an IP address to reach the called party, much as an alphabetic web address, such as www.nist.gov must be linked to the IP address of the NIST web server. A number of protocols are involved in determining the IP address that corresponds to the called party's telephone number.

"Once the called party answers, voice must be transmitted by converting the voice into digitized form, then segmenting the voice signal into a stream of packets. The first step in this process is converting analog voice signals to digital, using an analog-digital converter. Since digitized voice requires a large number of bits, a compression algorithm must be used to reduce the volume of data to be transmitted. Next, voice packets are inserted into data packets to be carried on the Internet. The protocol for the voice packets is typically the Real Time Protocol, RTP. RTP packets have special data fields that hold data needed to correctly re-assemble the packets into a voice signal on the other end. But voice packets will be carried as payload by UDP protocols that are also used for ordinary data transmission. In other words, the RTP packets are carried as data by the UDP packets, which can then be processed by ordinary network nodes throughout the Internet. At the other end, the process is reversed: the packets are disassembled and put into the proper order, digitized voice data extracted from the packets and uncompressed, then the digitized voice is processed by an digital-to-analog converter to render it into analog signals for the called party's handset speaker."

See FCC & VoIP

Legislation

HR 251 Truth in Caller ID Act of 2007 To amend the Communications Act of 1934 to prohibit manipulation of caller identification information, and for other purposes.

Papers

Mark C. Del Bianco, Voices Past: The Present and Future of VoIP Regulation, 14 COMMLAW CONSPECTUS 365 (2006)
Robert Cannon, State Regulatory Approaches to VoIP: Policy, Implementation, and Outcome, 57 FED. COMM. L.J. 479 (May, 2005)
Voice Over Internet Protocol: Status and Industry Recommendations: Presented as Guidance to the U.S. Department of State: By the Advisory Committee on International Communications and Information Policy, ISOC 5/10/2005
Internet Telephone Service: A New Era of Competition in Telecommunications, PPI 3/29/2005
William Jackson, “With VoIP, Digital Department Comes of Age at Commerce” .
Robert Cannon, State Regulatory Approaches to VoIP: Policy, Implementation, and Outcome, TPRC 10/2/2004
Douglas Sicker, A Model for Emergency Service of VoIP Through Certification and Labeling, TPRC 10/2/2004
Voice on the Net Coalition, "Unleashing the Full Promise and Potential of Internet Voice Communication," June 2004. PDF
NARUC Presentation: Implications of VoIP on Rural Telecom Providers (July04)
NARUC Presentation: IP Communications for the Public Good Winter 2004
NARUC Presentation: FCC Treatment of Voice Over IP Winter 2004
NARUC VOIP Panel Winter 2004
Press Release: Testimony: Naruc President Stan Wise Testifies On Sununu "Voip" Bill; Calls For Functional Approach And Critical State Role June 16, 2004
February 2004 - Study on Internet protocol (IP) voice and associated convergent services, EU Info Society 4/6/2004
CISCO IP Telephony / VoIP Primer
Analysys, Final Report to European Commission: IP Voice and Associated Convergent Services Jan 28, 2004
Rick Whitt, A Bit of Noise: VOIP and Rational Reform of Intercarrier Compensation Policies, MCI 1/15/2004
Balancing Responsibilities and Rights: A Regulatory Model for Facilities-Based VoIP Competition, NCTA 2/18/2004
NMRC releases report highlighting regulatory imperatives for VoIP telephony services Dec 2003 PDF
Chérie R. Kiser & Angela F. Collins, Regulation On The Horizon: Are Regulators Poised To Address the Status of IP Telephony?, 11 CommLaw Conspectus 19, 20-21 (2003).
Sharon Strover, Implementing Voice Over IP Telephony in 2-1-1 Call Centers, Telecommunications and Information Policy Institute, Aug. 2003 PDF
Regulatory Considerations for Cable-Provided IP Telephony, Mintz Levin March 3, 2003
COX: Preparing for the Promise of Voice-over Internet Protocol (VoIP) Feb. 2003
An Approach to International Regulatory Issues of IP Telephony, JSTL 9/6/02
B. Goode, Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP). Proceedings of thee IEEE, VOL. 90, NO. 9, Sept. 2002.
Internet Telephony Architecture and Federal Access Charge Reform Christopher Libertelli, Associate, Dow, Lohnes, & Albertson, Washington, DC
Voice over IP: Legal and Regulatory Issues Missouri Research and Education Network July 2002
GIPI Best Practices Paper, "Voice-over-IP: The Future of Communications April 2002
Influence of Liberalization of IP Telephony on the Telecommunications Market, Robert Horvitz, GIPI 2002,
R. Sinden, Comparison of Voice over IP with circuit switching techniques”. Department of electronics and Computer Science, Southampton University, UK, Jan. 2002.
Dr. Tim Kelley, IP Telephony: Economic Implications and Impacts on PTOs
Lee McKnight, How to Regulate a Platypus: Internet Telephony Regulation
Internet Telephony: Costs, Prices, and Policy by L. McKnight, MIT
Internet Policy and Open Communications Policy by L. McKnight
The Evolution of International Internet Telephony by Terrence P. McGarty
National Research Council, The Internet's Coming of Age: Collisions Between Existing Industries and Emerging Internet Industries: Telephony As a Case Study 2001
P. Mehta and S. Udani, Overview of Voice over IP. Technical Report MS-CIS- 01-31, Department of Computer Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, February 2001.
IP Telephony to Have a Dramatic Impact on Asian Voice, Data Communications Markets OnTheInternet June 2001
Elizabeth M Donahue, Directly Competing Policies: The Growth of Internet Telephony and the Future of the Universal Service Fund, 9 Commlaw Conspectus 225 (2001).
C-N. Chuah, Providing End-to-End QoS for IP based Latency sensitive Applications.”. Technical Report, Dept. of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of California at Berkeley, 2000.
The Internet Protocol (IP) and Global Telecommunications Transformation by Terry McGarty. "Presented at the "Creative Destruction: Telecomm in Transition" Conference, Tufts University, Cambridge, MA, March 12, 1999.
Emir Mohammed, The Growth of Internet Telephony: Legal and Policy Issues, First Monday (1999)
Before the Federal Communications Commission In the Matter of: The Provision of Interstate and International Interexchange Telecommunications Service via the "Internet" by Non Tariffed, Uncertified Entities. Submitted by Students of the MIT Telecommunications Modeling and Policy Analysis Seminar
Jonathan Weinberg, The Internet and "Telecommunications Services," Universal Service Mechanisms, Access Charges and Other Flotsam of the Regulatory System (1999)
Vinodkrishnan Kulathumani, Voice over IP: Products, Services and Issues
First Monday, The Growth of Internet Telephony: Legal and Policy Issues 1999
A Taxonomy of Internet Telephony Applications, David Clark, MIT [Abstract] [Paper pdf] TPRC
McKnight, Lee. "Internet Telephony and Open Communications Policy." (PDF) MIT Press 1998
MIT ITC2000: Internet Telephony and Beyond MIT Internet Telephony ... (August 1998) pdf
McKnight, Lee and Brett Leida. "Internet Telephony: Costs, Pricing, and Policy." (PDF) TPRC 1997
Clark, David. "A Taxonomy of Internet Telephony Applications." TPRC 1997
England, Christer. "Taxonomy of Internet telephony and multimedia standards." (PDF) 1997.
Englund, Christer. "Taxonomy table of existing and forthcoming Internet telephony and multimedia Standards." (PDF) ITC 1997
Gawer, Annabelle. "Complementary Products and Modular Innovation in Internet Telephony." ITC 1997
Shuster, Marc. "Adoption and Demand of IP Telephony Services." (PDF) ITC 1997.
Sears, Andrew L. and Kevin Savetz. "FAQs How Do I Use the Internet as a Telephone?" 1996
Sears, Andrew L. "The Effect of Internet Telephony on the Long Distance Voice Market." ITC working paper, 1996.
Sears, Andrew L., Phil Mutooni, and Borris Li. "An Analysis of the ACTA Filing to Ban Internet Telephony." Paper and presentation made to "Information Technology Business Strategy and Public Policy," Harvard University, 7 April 1996.
Sears, Andrew, Phil Mutooni, Rob Cheng, et al. "A Cost Model of Internet Telephony for Regulatory Decision Making." FCC Comment, 1996."
MIT Internet Telephony Consortium The Goal: Slides June 1996
Tuan N. Samahon, The First Amendment Case Against FCC IP Telephony Regulation, 51 Fed. Com. L.J. 493 (1993) (pdf).

Papers: Access by Individuals with Disabilities

Gregg C Vanderheiden Ph.D., Access to Voice over Internet Protocol ("VoIP"), TRACE 2/24/2004

Papers: Benefits: Costs

MS Windows Embedded Home: VoIP Industry Trends (discussing benefits of VoIP including Reduced Total Cost of Ownership and More Efficient Network Utilization)
NIST, Security Considerations for VoIP Systems 800-58 p. 13(April 2004)

"VOIP is also cost effective because all of an organization's electronic traffic (phone and data) is condensed onto one network. Although there is a non-trivial initial startup cost to such an enterprise, significant net savings can result from managing only one network and not needing to sustain a legacy telephony system in an increasingly digital/data centered world. Also, the network administrator’s burden is lessened as they can now focus on a single network. There is no longer a need for several teams to manage a data network and another to mange a voice network. The simplicity of VOIP systems is attractive, one organization / one network; but as we shall see, the integration of security measures into this architecture is very complex."

VoIP by the numbers: IP telephony can save hard dollars - if you know how to measure them NWFusion 2003
Wringing Savings From VOIP Getting a pay back from voice-over-IP investments isn't easy, but these users have managed to pull it off. By Barbara DePompa Reimers Computer World Jan 2003
Study: VoIP costs all over the map, CNET 11/19/2004
A strong case for Converged Networks Network Magazine India
Inherent Cost Advantages of VoIP Networks VocalTec July 2002
GE IT Solutions: IPT and VoIP Benefits 2003
CASE STUDY Voice over IP - cost benefits and security concerns .Based on a successful implementation by the Australian Universities, sponsored by CSIRO.
Analyst: VoIP offers more than cost savings By Jim Rendon, News Writer 18 Cot 2002 | SearchNetworking.com
McKnight, Lee and Brett Leida. "Internet Telephony: Costs, Pricing, and Policy." (PDF) TPRC 1997
Voice Over IP Technology Guide Immediate Cost Savings Multitech Systems
The Real Cost of VoIP, Network Mag 7/11/03