I first mentioned telephony web services in a post I wrote after last fall's Connect 2006 conferences. That post generated some comments and private email discussions that lead to an article in my monthly column in the March issue of Internet Telephony magazine.
As planning for Connect 2007 is well underway, I'm looking at telephony web services again and I realize I forgot to point to my article. So, for those of you who don't read the hard copy magazine and don't scan the TMC website (they don't provide RSS) searching for my monthly column :-), it's here and still very relevant. Some excerpts:
This is a nascent field. Traditional fixed and mobile operators still run highly constrained voice networks. Yes, you can have your computer place and receive calls, but if you want to overlay a private numbering scheme for use between phones in your far-flung offices (a voice VPN) — such services are only available from your operator. Likewise, if you want to integrate your customer care software with call center functionality, you start with PBX technology, as public networks are not open. Even access to your own call history requires scraping data from itemized bills.
Does the new world of VoIP do any better? Not much. Major VoIP operators, like Vonage, use VoIP to reproduce traditional fixed-line services — basically “digital POTS” — no open APIs there. Skype offers PC-based APIs for the Skype client and you could argue that’s all that makes sense for a peer-to-peer service. There are no central services to expose through web service APIs. But the test is what can you do with their APIs and the answer is client extensions. Since Skype clients run as a single instance per PC, you can’t easily implement a multi-channel back-to-back user agent (B2BUA) and a VPN.
There's a lot more in the article including mention of specific companies, LignUp Corporation, Abbeynet S.p.A., Ubiquity Software and Angel.com.
We should have meaningful updates at this fall's Connect 2007 conferences in a session tentatively titled "Mashups: Web Meets Telco."
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