IBM To Run VoIP On Linux

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."

Comments

IBM converting employees?

[MikeDawg]

So. . . IBM is converting its employees to VoIP

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

Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company

[silentbozo]

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...

Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company

[jackb_guppy]

Try the Phillipeans... VoIP is illegal.

Won't IBM have fun installing it there.

Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company

[pyrrhonist]

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.

Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company

[dissy]

> 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

[temojen]

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...

Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company

[BuckaBooBob]

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.

Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company

[axxackall]

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.

Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company

[dissy]

> 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

Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company

[ericman31]

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.

Re:Big Blue vs. The Banna Republic Phone Company

[router]

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

Proof the IP6 is dead!!

[jackb_guppy]

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.

Re:Proof the IP6 is dead!!

[spitefulcrow]

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.

Everything moving on to ip

[modder]

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?

Re:Everything moving on to ip

[Tailhook]

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.

SCO + Phone Companies = Lawsuits!

[joeszilagyi]

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!

[jubalj]

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..

Re:Great stuff for linux!

[temojen]

If the IBM software

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

IBM lives and breaths on their PBXes

[BoldAndBusted]

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.

You've got it all wrong

[MarcQuadra]

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?

not insignificant

[benjonson]

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.

Shameless plug

[jmv]

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

Re:Shameless plug

[tulare]

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.

Re:That's great!

[Tailhook]

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.

What about encryption?

[Anonymous Coward]

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?

What? No one's mentioned....

[bflong]

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

Re:Whoowhoo

[pyrrhonist]

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.

• Telecom giants join Linux effort
• Carrier Grade Linux
• Nortel Succession Communication Server 2000
• Cisco SIP Proxy
• Mitel 3050ICP
• Morotola Carrier Grade Chassis
• Motorola HA Linux
• Motorola VoIP
• Zultys Phones
• Zultys PBX
• SNOM Phones
• SNOM Media Server
• Asterisk
• Vovida

SCO v IBM, a game plan

[pair-a-noyd]

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

[jhermans]

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 ?

VoIP or IP Telephony

[blaager]

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.

Better yet, it's Linux!

[ZorinLynx]

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...