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IBM To Run VoIP On Linux

Posted by timothy on 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."

113 of 198 comments (clear)

  1. IBM converting employees? by MikeDawg · · Score: 5, Funny

    So. . . IBM is converting its employees to VoIP

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

    --

    YOU'RE WINNER !
    Another lame blog

    1. Re:IBM converting employees? by t0ny · · Score: 1
      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.

      --

      Manipulate the moderator system! Mod someone as "overrated" today.

    2. Re:IBM converting employees? by Keighvin · · Score: 1

      It's just VoIP, of course it's humane.

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

      --
      Any spoon would be too big.
    3. Re:IBM converting employees? by jo42 · · Score: 1


      Holy Format C:, Batman!

  2. Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by silentbozo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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...

    1. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by jackb_guppy · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Try the Phillipeans... VoIP is illegal.

      Won't IBM have fun installing it there.

    2. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by pyrrhonist · · Score: 2, Informative
      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.

      --
      Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
    3. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by dissy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > 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.

    4. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by temojen · · Score: 2, Informative
      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 for more info about VoIP PBX whatevers... or GnomeMeeting for a client so you can start getting your hands dirty now...

    5. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by dreadnougat · · Score: 1

      "There aren't many state-owned phone companies left in the world due to "Structural Adjustment Programs""

      Yet another jab at my province and it's socialist fear-monger taskmasters. Come on people, the Saskatchewan Party lost and I'm depressed enough about that already :(

    6. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by BuckaBooBob · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Who needs WiFi when we can have Packet Over Sheep! http://datacomm.org/PoS-InternetDraft.txt
    7. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

      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.

    8. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by NewWaveNet · · Score: 1

      1. There aren't many state-owned phone companies left in the world due to "Structural Adjustment Programs"

      Uhm, it's called cyclical economic changes. No need to be putting this in quotes like it's some super-evil/top-secret thing.

    9. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by axxackall · · Score: 2, Informative
      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 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?

      Personally, I would appreciate the death of "long distance call" concept.

      --

      Less is more !
    10. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by the_brat_king · · Score: 1

      Yesterday, I was on the phone with the local telco (Qwest) trying to get a damaged Cell Phone repaired. The call was tinny, echoed, had lag, and faded in and out -- after a little while, the call actually just dropped.

      I got a call back about 5 minutes later, from Qwest, and found out that they've switched a lot of their support staff to VoIP! They should have gone with a better carrier though -- this call was like an 80's Cell Phone, almost out of range!

      Bottom line (and the on topic point) is: I don't think they'll have too many problems with converting to VoIP, as long as they use an ILEC/CLEC to do it.

    11. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by Casshan-Robot+Hunter · · Score: 1

      I think you mean the Philippines. The Phillipians were people from Phillipi, a city in the Roman Empire in first century A.D. Phillipians is also a book of the Bible (referring to the same city). The Philippines are islands in the south pacific.

      --
      Why oh why didn't I take the purple pill?
    12. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by dissy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      > 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

    13. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by dissy · · Score: 1

      > 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.

    14. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by ericman31 · · Score: 2, Informative

      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 cost savings by reducing the number of PSTN circuits I need. I'm still using PBX and TDM technology for my phone system.
      2. IPTEL - IP Telephony, no PBX or TDM at all. My PSTN circuits terminate on a DSP based gateway and are converted to TCP/IP packets. Those packets are routed by a server based call management system to IP hosts (telephones, computers with software, analog converters, etc.). This is an internal strategy to converge my voice and data networks and eliminate costly and proprietary PBX and TDM systems.

      In the not too distant past I was the architect for an IPTEL project. We eliminated 3 PBX'es in our 5 building campus and replaced it with a single IPTEL system. We have no PBX, our phones run on the same network as our data. Our data network is extremely redundant and high speed. Switched gigabit to the servers, switched 100 megabit to the end points, collapsed backbone layer 3 switching throughout. All core switches are redundant, all call manager servers are redundant, all voice mail servers are redundant.

      Our PBX system was about 12 years old and needed to be replaced. Migrating to a converged solution cost us less than replacing and we moved to modern technology. Going forward over the next 5 to 10 years most business telephony will migrate to IPTel. We also use VOIP to route phonecalls within our campus. External calls, both in and out, come in on PSTN circuits, hit our gateway and then are pure IP from that point onwards. With QSIG and QoS our quality is just as good as any PBX system. That's the short term advantage. Also, short term, we have integrated our voice mail and our email. Employees can now receive and listen to voice mail in their groupware client (Outlook in our case) or they can listen to email via the voicemail system while on the road. We publish system alerts and the like directly to the phones via an XML browser capability on the telephones. We can converge voice and data into any application we want. Our CRM system will be completely integrated (voice and data) in about two more months.

      This is what IBM and other enterprises want VOIP (more properly IPTEL) for, not for the PSTN reductions. They can already achieve that by routing phone calls on their global private network from PBX to PBX using VOIP technology. And they probably already do that.

      --
      In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
    15. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by router · · Score: 1

      Great synopsys. Got no mod points tho.

      andy

    16. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by router · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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

    17. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by fferreres · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      unfinished: (adj.)
    18. Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company by chris_7d0h · · Score: 1

      Judging by past experience of IBM roll-outs, if the decision is anchored all the way up (which this decision seem to be), IBM'll basically tell the tel-cos to either accept their new requirements or "take a hike". Eventhough there will apparently be a revenue loss to the companies currently having IBM as a customer, there are still enough other tel-cos eager to get "whatever money they can get", even if it'll be just a percentage of IBMs current spending on telephony.

      It isn't just the fixed lines where IBM is putting preassure, most every IBMer has a cel-subscription as well, and in the past IBM has not been afraid to switch provider if they can save a buck. It's all about value/cost for IBM.

      Agreed, IBM isn't as the average company, meaning it has the means to create most of the tech it needs internally (using it's own employees and partnerships with other companies, like cisco et. al.). Also worth noting is that in this particular case, it's probably not just the savings alone which resulted in the decision to switch. Consider that IBM is a company producing a lot of middleware and their experience will most certainly be reflected in additional modules to existing offerings (for example the WebSphere family), or completely new ones. It's also a good sales pitch when the customer asks for previous references as IBM will be able to say "we eat and breathe the stuff we're preaching".

      --
      In a society that believes in nothing, fear becomes the only agenda ~ Bill Durodié
  3. Proof the IP6 is dead!! by jackb_guppy · · Score: 4, Funny

    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.

    1. Re:Proof the IP6 is dead!! by spitefulcrow · · Score: 2, Insightful

      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 provided by the telcos. So instead of paying for voice/data, they'll just pay for more data. I know for a fact that they recently contracted their global private network out to AT&T.

      --
      Sorry, my karma just ran over your dogma.
    2. Re:Proof the IP6 is dead!! by caston · · Score: 1

      SIP addresses are like e-mail addresses sipuser@host.com I think is this much easier to remember even compared to POTS numbers!

      --
      Beings aspergers AND pulling chicks... I enjoy the challenge!
    3. Re:Proof the IP6 is dead!! by ruprechtjones · · Score: 1

      You're either quite stupid, or make horrible jokes.

      I wish they had a -1 mod for "too dumb to get the joke".

      --
      Kip Hawley is an idiot.
    4. Re:Proof the IP6 is dead!! by ducomputergeek · · Score: 1

      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?

      --
      "The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
  4. Re:That's great! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Yeah, they should use Windows instead so Microsoft can profit more. And since the OS is the only cost of the switch they should pay MS twice as much.

  5. Everything moving on to ip by modder · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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?

    1. Re:Everything moving on to ip by Clinoti · · Score: 1
      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.

      --

      Let's keep in mind that patents are in place to keep lawyers employed and keep them litigating. -CatGrep

    2. Re:Everything moving on to ip by skizrule · · Score: 1

      Interesting point. I wonder if any research has been done on this topic.

    3. Re:Everything moving on to ip by zyridium · · Score: 1

      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.

    4. Re:Everything moving on to ip by Tailhook · · Score: 3, Insightful

      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.

      --
      Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
    5. Re:Everything moving on to ip by modder · · Score: 1


      I can only assume this is a large motivation behind moving _80_ percent of their human resources to this.

    6. Re:Everything moving on to ip by pyrrhonist · · Score: 1
      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, 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.

      You'd be surprised. You can pick up all the equipment that you need on e-bay for a reasonable price.

      But as eveything moves to using really common standards, it gets pretty easy to test this stuff in his mom's basement or whatever...

      You do know why the original phreaker was called "Captain Crunch", right? The PSTN had security issues as well.

      --
      Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
    7. Re:Everything moving on to ip by modder · · Score: 1



      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]

    8. Re:Everything moving on to ip by fhic · · Score: 1

      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 paying PacBell when we've got an OC3 that spends most if its time idle.

    9. Re:Everything moving on to ip by WindowlessView · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
    10. Re:Everything moving on to ip by WindowlessView · · Score: 1

      it is why they have chosen an open source solution. They can author, patch, admin and TRUST their own work, on their own system.

      Huh? Did I miss the memo barring IBM from using any of the at least half dozen operating systems they currently market? Are they no longer in control of their own source?

      --
      Leave the gun, take the cannolis.
    11. Re:Everything moving on to ip by pyrrhonist · · Score: 1

      That's definitely a concern, and it scares the Frosted Linux Charms right out of me, too.

      --
      Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
    12. Re:Everything moving on to ip by ericman31 · · Score: 1

      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 network team (I was, at the time, the senior architect for the operations group) and between the COO and myself we gained consensus that we needed to investigate the technologies.

      Then I went off and worked with several vendors (Avaya, Cisco, Nortel, etc.) to define what we would need to migrate and how soon we could expect an ROI (about 20 months) if we migrated our PBX system to IPTel. Then I brought in a project manager, we put a project charter and cost model together and took that back to the COO as a proposal. We also gained agreement from the call center and the various IT groups (technical delivery, operations, telecom, network operations) by taking them on tours of existing IPTel installations and meeting with organizations that had already done the migration. We included all of those details in the proposal as well. The COO and CFO liked it and chartered a project to implement an IPTel system to replace our PBX.

      --
      In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
    13. Re:Everything moving on to ip by Thing+1 · · Score: 1
      comproomise
      Kanga? Is that you? God I miss your pouch.
      --
      I feel fantastic, and I'm still alive.
  6. SCO + Phone Companies = Lawsuits! by joeszilagyi · · Score: 4, Funny

    So, how long until Darl McBride realizes he can team up with SBC, Verizon, et al to sue even more people?

    --
    Dude, where's my packet?
    1. Re:SCO + Phone Companies = Lawsuits! by JoAnywhere · · Score: 1

      OMG... $699/Minute for VoIP Long Distance Anyone?

  7. Great stuff for linux! by jubalj · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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..

    1. Re:Great stuff for linux! by timeOday · · Score: 1

      Is there any reason in particular to hope it will be affordable or open source?

    2. Re:Great stuff for linux! by timeOday · · Score: 1

      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.

    3. Re:Great stuff for linux! by temojen · · Score: 2, Informative
      If the IBM software

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

    4. Re:Great stuff for linux! by iabervon · · Score: 1

      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.

    5. Re:Great stuff for linux! by ericman31 · · Score: 1

      A quick google search turned up 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 selected Cisco's AVVID solution, for those who are curious.

      We had a serious dilemma, we run our production heavy hitting servers on UNIX and sometimes Linux. We are starting to transition Linux for a lot of our core infrastructure. The two vendors we looked at closest for IPTel were Cisco and Avaya. Cisco is very open standards based in terms of Network Protocols and Cisco tends to drive the industry for new and emerging protocols. BUT their call managers and voice mail servers run on Windows (ugh) and Compaq servers (double ugh). Avaya, on the other hand, is pretty proprietary in terms of protocols and is in trouble financially and market share wise. BUT their call managers run on Linux. Finally we chose Cisco because we felt that the protocol side of this was more important than a couple of call manager servers that we can replace in the future if need be.

      --
      In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
    6. Re:Great stuff for linux! by Wesley+Felter · · Score: 1

      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.

  8. IBM lives and breaths on their PBXes by BoldAndBusted · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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.

  9. Re:That's great! by Stradenko · · Score: 1

    The better off IBM is as a company, the better off the employees are (more stable environment, fewer layoffs).

    They might not give savings back to individual employees, but it may stop (delay?) them from making cutbacks.

  10. Re:That's great! by chrisbord · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Like all productivity gains, they'll spend the money on new equipment, new r&d, expansion of their business, etc., which eventually means more employees. Which is a very good thing.

  11. You've got it all wrong by MarcQuadra · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That's the most back-ass reasoning I've ever heard. Companies don't just hoarde their savings, they spend it on shit they want but can't have without savings in other areas.

    IBM isn't going to bank the savings from this Linux stuff, they're going to roll it into R&D (jobs), growth (jobs), and some bonuses for executives (trickle-down jobs, hopefully).

    If we all played by your reasoning we'd have a really... Amish way of life right now.

    Plus, this will create LINUX jobs instead of IBM-proprietary jobs, how can you argue against that?

    --
    "Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
    1. Re:You've got it all wrong by ameoba · · Score: 1

      ...just like Microsoft (who has larger cash reserves than most banks) rolls their cash into further spending...

      --
      my sig's at the bottom of the page.
    2. Re:You've got it all wrong by dreadnougat · · Score: 1

      Can't attack the logic, so you attack the construction. Very mature AND convincing.

    3. Re:You've got it all wrong by craw · · Score: 1

      Good points but you forgot dividend payments to the share holders. Dividends helps to keep the stock price up and nice to those that want a blue chip stock.

      IMHO, Microsoft hordes their money so that they can buy out companies that actually innovate. We hopefully all know the list. Microsoft is giving out dividends. Does this mean that they are no longer a growth stock?

      Bed time for me now.

  12. Re:That's great! by zyridium · · Score: 1

    I don't understand why this is getting modded up. When you are talking about a massive rollout of technology, including that much software and hardware, the OS cost would be close to insignificant.

    In the end they are paying for it anyway...(outsourcing, support contracts, etc)

  13. not insignificant by benjonson · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.

    --
    =-+
    1. Re:not insignificant by jc42 · · Score: 1

      ... 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 that's more of a hardware problems than an OS problem. A driver compiled for a different processor may need tweaking to make it work right. But the driver's interface to a new unix-like system probably needs little
      tweaking.

      Building on linux really just makes your code highly portable, so you can easily treat the OS as a commodity. Put out bids, and use the hardware/OS combination that costs least (among POSIX systems that satisfy your minimum speed requirements).

      Linux does tend to win such cost/benefit calculations, since the OS itself has a rather low cost. But this may not be true 5 or 10 years from now.

      Part of the cost calculation is something often missed in simplistic analyses: Porting to a new platform does always take a fair amount of work, even when everything goes well. You need a very thorough test suite, and you have to hunt down and fix a flock of subtle bugs due to different compilers, runtime libraries, etc. This is even true when going to the next release of your current platform. Fixing the "small" bugs is especially tricky when the trail leads down into the OS. Vendors are often not very cooperative when you start asking questions about the internals, which they consider proprietary. With linux, all the source is freely available, so it's easy to trace bugs down into the OS. Well, it's easy for expert C hackers.

      So porting to linux is usually faster and easier than to commercial systems. But linux has no advantage here over the *BSD systems. It also looks like OSX is becoming (nearly) as open as linux and *BSD.

      In any case, I wouldn't bet on IBM being loyal to linux over the long term. More likely, they favor it because of the advantages of a system with freely-available, license-free source. Any other system with these properties (and which has a POSIX library) will be a very real possibility in the future.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    2. Re:not insignificant by Feztaa · · Score: 1

      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.

  14. Re:That's great! by The+Ape+With+No+Name · · Score: 1

    You can't tell me that IBM plans to give the savings back to the employees.

    No. Shareholders. You can always find cheap help. N-E-O-L-I-B-E-R-A-L-I-S-M.

    --
    Comparing it to Windows will be a moot point, since El Dorado is going to have a 40% larger code base than XP.
  15. Caveat by bstadil · · Score: 1
    You can't tell me that IBM plans to give the savings back to the employees.

    What the employees does not get falls throught to the shareholders or into added investments.

    These might have different Multiplier effects so the impact on the economy can be up / down or sideways. , but the blanket statement you made is not correct.

    At least not correct in principel.

    --
    Help fight continental drift.
  16. Re:VOIP! by dextremethorpheus · · Score: 1

    stupidest thing i've ever seen. thanks for the link.

  17. Shameless plug by jmv · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Of course I'm biased, but I hope the use an open-source codec.

    --
    Opus: the Swiss army knife of audio codec
    1. Re:Shameless plug by tulare · · Score: 2, Informative

      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 - 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 using artsd. Forget artsd anyhow. But I digress.

      It's a neat little client/server app. I recommend checking it out if you're curious.

      --
      political_news.c: warning: comparison is always true due to limited range of data type
  18. Re:That's great! by GammaTau · · Score: 1

    Jesus fucking christ. Who let mr. mcbride be a moderator?

    My personal guess is that there is some confusion between SCO's IP over facts lawsuit and IBM's voice over IP project.

  19. Re:That's great! by Tailhook · · Score: 4, Insightful

    economy will not gain any boost

    Please attempt to calculate the value-add of a product such as Eclipse. IBM handed that to the world for free. They did this because IBM is a smart, well run company that knows how to make itself valuable in the marketplace. Eventually they'll save a big wad of cash when they stop paying inflated prices for proprietary PBX hardware and maintenance, and in a small way that will eventually contribute to the next moral equivalent of Eclipse.

    Linux advocacy, giving AMD Opteron a huge credibility boost, one of the best JVM implementations, a world class IDE for free... You geeks need to show IBM some love. They are one of the good guys.

    --
    Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
  20. Voip first then Video over ip. by zymano · · Score: 1

    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.

    1. Re:Voip first then Video over ip. by Neuroelectronic · · Score: 1
      A big IF though is our government leadership supporting it and not supporting the dinosaur industries that keep us in the past.

      it's nice to see IBM is so generous to the community. It's espcially good PR when you consider the hole Nazi computer number thing.

  21. What about encryption? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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?

    1. Re:What about encryption? by Ignis+Flatus · · Score: 1

      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 past when they worked with NSA and watered down their LUCIFER algorithm to produce DES. IBM could then play both sides, on the one had selling "secure" VoIP to companies and govenments, and on the other hand contracting with NSA build the monitoring systems. A real win-win, eh? And the best part is, the government won't impose this on anyone. IBM will set the standard, and you will buy it willingly.

    2. Re:What about encryption? by slashdotsim · · Score: 1

      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 :-)

    3. Re:What about encryption? by SCHecklerX · · Score: 1

      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.

  22. VPN by temojen · · Score: 1

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

  23. Re:That's great! by MikeDawg · · Score: 1

    Hopefully they will give savings back to individual employees in one way or another, its just a matter of accounting. IBM, if they save a significant amount, will push out dividends, put money into more R&D, bonuses to upper management.

    Somebody and hopefully some peoples will benefit by IBM making this move

    --

    YOU'RE WINNER !
    Another lame blog

  24. Re:Hmmm by jamesh · · Score: 1

    as opposed to what? phoning you up while you're playing tetris?

  25. Re:Whoowhoo by mcpkaaos · · Score: 1

    Someone doesn't have a sense of humor. Shameful moderator. ;\ No wonder half the /. population saves their jokes for posting AC.

    --
    It goes from God, to Jerry, to me.
  26. What? No one's mentioned.... by bflong · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Asterisk: the open source software PBX, which runs on Linux, and has a hardware company to back it up with support and equipment?

    --
    Why is it so hot? Where am I going? What am I doing in this handbasket?
    1. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by bmajik · · Score: 1

      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 running star-config wires for all phones, and setting up asterisk as a traditional PBX. THe notion that i could programmatically ring my telephones based on the power of UNIX and perl is not something to sneeze at. Especially since asterisk sucks callerID info right up. I mean consider the integration you could have with the system time, your ical calender, and the callerID that shows up. Asterisk can play a friendly message for your grandmother mentioning that you are unable to come to the phone at 6am on a saturday morning. Your phones will NEVER ring :)

      --
      My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
    2. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by pe1chl · · Score: 1

      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.

    3. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by jc42 · · Score: 1

      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 worked ok. And this was before RTP was developed to fix the problems with voice over TCP.

      One of the fun parts was the electronic id tags you could get, similar in function to RFID, which would let the system locate you. If you carried the tag, phone calls would be routed to the phone that was physically closest to you. So if a nearby phone rang, you would pick it up, and it would be for you or someone else very close. Of course, this did lead to all the obvious discussions about the phone system tracking your every move. Many people just left their id sitting under their desk phone.

      The curious thing is that VoIP has taken so long to catch on with "The Market". Here in North America, the phone companies have been reporting that traffic over long lines has been pretty much all converted to IP by now, and the idea is slowly making its way upward through the entire phone system. But they've resisted offering it at the retail level for a very obvious reason: It would kill all that nice income from long-distance charges. With IP, "long distance" isn't a very meaningful concept.

      --
      Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
    4. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by pe1chl · · Score: 1

      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.

    5. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by cdh · · Score: 1

      Have you ever seen a "real" PBX that doesn't use proprietary phones? You can't use Nortel phones on an Avaya PBX. Phone costs are built into the cost of switching PBXs. The only places that use "classic" (ie. analog) phones are the small companies. Every real PBX has it's own digital phones.

    6. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by slappy · · Score: 1

      Well, take a look at shoreline's shoregear. It can use plain ol' analog phones along with IP phones.

    7. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by cdh · · Score: 1

      Yeah, and you can use Cisco ATA's to do the same thing. However, the OP was talking about "normal" phones w/ a traditional PBX which generally is not doable. Plus, normal phones do not have the features that a digital phone would have, therefore businesses (we're not talking home users here) want the digital phones. Yes, home users will want the conventional phones as they generally do not want to spend $500/phone, but for a normal business this is no big deal.

    8. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by ericman31 · · Score: 1

      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 convenient at your primary location. If you were to install an open source IPTel solution in your home, and had inbound VPN capability, then you could make and receive your home phone calls anywhere you could get an internet connection provided you had a laptop with the right software with you. That's what we are doing for our road warriors at work now.

      --
      In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
    9. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by ericman31 · · Score: 1

      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 analog equipment that wasn't fully depreciated. It was cheaper to buy the analog gateway for our IPTel system than to write off the depreciation and buy newer digital equipment.

      But this idea that you have to be able to connect the "old equipment" is ridiculous. We have IP phones that do everything that the extended feature digital phones ever did. Multi-line, call waiting, caller ID, extended functions and features, and more. And, new technology is enabled, like an XML based display. Now we can push data to the phone using IP and XML. Do that with your "normal telephones".

      --
      In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
    10. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by bmajik · · Score: 1

      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 ass. If its missing something - add it yourself :)

      --
      My opinions are my own, and do not necessarily represent those of my employer.
    11. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by pe1chl · · Score: 1

      We are in the process of replacing the PBX, and the new box will be able to use the old phones.
      Sure, it is from the same manufacturer.

      But I am not only talking about the re-use of old phones. You will also need to connect analog lines (for faxes, doorphones etc), to connect internal ISDN-2 lines (for certain dialup uses), etc.

      A solution that works only with IP phones is no solution, generally.

    12. Re:What? No one's mentioned.... by cdh · · Score: 1

      My company does it all the time. Right now I am on a project displacing an Avaya PBX w/ a Cisco IP system. All new phones (the old ones will not work), and no analog phones or faxes. If you use the right technologies, such as analog->IP gateways, you do not need anything. A large part of our business is PBX displacement, and normal businesses have no problem displacing everything.

  27. which pill to take... by modder · · Score: 1


    Take the big blue pill

  28. Re:Whoowhoo by pyrrhonist · · Score: 3, Informative
    VoIP on Linux? Swell idea. Let's put the technology to communicate via voice on a platform used by about 15 people

    You are a complete fucktard.

    --
    Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
  29. SCO v IBM, a game plan by pair-a-noyd · · Score: 2, Insightful

    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....

    1. Re:SCO v IBM, a game plan by sydb · · Score: 1

      On that SCO note, SCO Unix is (was?) a fairly major telephony platform too. Perhaps IBM have loads of SCO servers they want rid of?

      --
      Yours Sincerely, Michael.
  30. clusters, multiple locations by Sean+Clifford · · Score: 1
    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.

  31. switcheroo by Sean+Clifford · · Score: 1

    Of course this is easier for us because our call centers are about 2 miles apart.

  32. Dude... No wonder! by uberdave · · Score: 1

    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'm not impatient. I just hate waiting." - My Dad
    1. Re:Dude... No wonder! by sean23007 · · Score: 1

      Clearly the girl who gave him that number gave him a fake one. A lot like "555-...." and so on. I can see it now:

      "Hey! There's a G in here! Wait, hold on!" *hangs head in shame*

      --

      Lack of eloquence does not denote lack of intelligence, though they often coincide.
  33. Behind the curve, nit ahead of it by pcause · · Score: 1
    Why is this news? VoIP is a proven technology. Folks like Avaya and Cisco have been selling VoIP systems to commercial customers for a while. In Japan, Softbank has something like 3+ million customers running on a VoIP phone network. These are folks who aren't techies, but hust your average home user. They get great service and cheap prices.

    IBM already has a huge, dedicated network of satellite and leased lines, so this is just a straightforward decision to use proven technology and existing infrastructure to save $$. Maybe the fuss is because while IBM may sell some leading edge stuff, they are pretty trailing edge internally and culturally.

  34. no big deal - lots of VOIP runs on Linux by jhermans · · Score: 3, Informative

    I work for Alcatel Belgium (I work on the SMC 5735 RADIUS Proxy, a part of the 5020 SoftSwitch), and I can assure you that quite a number of products run on Linux, for example our OmniPCXOffice 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 ?

  35. Re:That's great! by smittyoneeach · · Score: 1

    How about if we qualify that?
    The IT economy might not get boosted, but if free software allows companies to spend money on other things besides software licenses, the general welfare is likely to improve.
    Though you may well be right, I'm saying it needs to be modelled in some detail before drawing conclusions.

    --
    Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
  36. Re:Big Blue vs. .. -- Tie lines by leerpm · · Score: 1

    A PBX is an internal phone system: a private branch exchange.

    The 'tie lines' you speak of are probably leased lines from various telcos. There is no way any company could afford to run its own physical wire all the way around the world to connect all of its offices. But by changing over their internal phone system to VoIP, they can now easily use the Internet and other data networks to carry their voice traffic from branch-to-branch. And so now they no longer have to pay all the various telephone companies for these leased lines, they only have one bill now, for internet access.

  37. VoIP or IP Telephony by blaager · · Score: 4, Informative

    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.

    1. Re:VoIP or IP Telephony by ericman31 · · Score: 1

      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.

      --
      In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
    2. Re:VoIP or IP Telephony by C_Kode · · Score: 1

      IP Telephony is VoIP you are just being picky. It is voice communication over the IP ptotocol which is exactly what IP Telephony is. Chances are they have been using the VoIP that you are talking about for along time now. Hell, anyone who makes a long distance call today is probably using VoIP. The cost savings of VoIP over the traditional switched networks is enormous. How do you think all these long distance companies offer unheard of rates these days compared to before?

  38. It's all Rolm by FatSean · · Score: 1

    The handsets aren't new but the password requirements are quite strict.

    --
    Blar.
  39. Better yet, it's Linux! by ZorinLynx · · Score: 2, Funny

    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...

  40. TELCO'S Make money either way. by Brigadier · · Score: 1



    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.

  41. Re:Doesn't 2008 seem a long time away? by ericman31 · · Score: 1

    but it seems a technology company could do that migration in around two years, not four.

    First off, the project itself ain't getting done in 2 years. It's expensive, requiring a lot of capital, there's a lot of work to be done to migrate each PBX. There is additional network work to be done. And there's the bureaucracy to deal with. I work for one of IBM's competitors (professional services side, not hardware/software). The most time consuming part of any project like this is all the internal issues that have to be dealt with. When you put it all together, 3 to 4 years (done by 2008 is what they said, so all of 04, 05, 06 and 07) is not unreasonable at all. And they can't just take all of their scarce network and telecom professionals off of other projects to throw at this project. They still have call centers, data centers and offices to run as well during the transition.

    --
    In my universe I'm perfectly normal, it's not my fault you don't live in my universe.
  42. The New Blue Box? by Phantasmo · · Score: 1

    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!

    --

    The US Army: promoting democracy through unquestioned obedience