The Challenge of Video Conferencing 
as the new
Telephone for the Millennium

 

By

Donald Alexander Moskaluk

 

 

Submitted to department of Fachbereich Staats – und Wirtschaftswissenschaften

In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Master Degree in Economics Science

 

January 2002

 

Copyright 2002 - Ukrainian Free University - Ukrainische Freie Universität - All Rights Reserved.


Abstract

The growth of Video Conferencing as a potential challenge to regular telephony or the Plain-Old Telephone System (POTS) is an area of academic inquiry needing further examination. This paper critically examines the opposition to Video Conferencing with particular emphasis on limitation of technology on the Internet, the 1996 America's Carriers Telecommunication Association (ACTA) petition to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC), in addition to the European Commission's attitudes towards the matter. Moreover, the difficulties attached to an understanding of defining what exactly Video Conferencing means and what “Internet Telephony” means are also addressed.


Contents

Abstract 2

Contents. 3

Introduction. 5

Video Conferencing related to Internet telephony. 7

What is Internet Telephony?. 8

Soft Market for Telephony. 9

Today’s Solution. 9

Technology Problems. 10

Reliability. 11

Poor Sound Quality. 12

Ease of use. 12

Infrastructure. 12

Standards. 13

Back-office Applications. 13

Technology Summary. 13

The Opposition to Internet Telephony. 14

ACTA Complaint 14

The ACTA Petition. 15

The Petition. 17

History Repeats. 19

Internet Telephony as the Service. 20

Telephony & the European Commission. 24

Conclusion. 28

The Demand for Internet Telephony. 28

Summary and Final Analysis. 29

Appendix 1 - Resources. 34

General References. 34

Newsgroups. 34

Internet Telephony Software. 34

Windows Clients. 34

Mac Clients. 35

Unix Clients. 35

Phone Gateway Software Providers. 35

Fax Gateway Software Providers. 36

Computer Telephony Software. 36

Video Conferencing Clients (with voice conferencing) 36

Integrated Messaging. 37

Phone Gateway Service Providers. 37

Developers, Researchers and Research Groups. 37

Research Groups. 37

Individual Researchers. 37

Publications/Presentations/Information. 38

Conferences. 38

Newsgroups. 38

Networks. 38

Internet 38

Upstream ISP's. 38

Internet Access Providers/POPs. 39

Public Switched Telephone Network. 39

ATM... 39

Standards. 39

Standards Groups and Trade Organizations. 39

IETF Working Groups. 39

RTP (Real Time Protocol) 39

RSVP (Reservation Protocol) 39

Directory Services. 41

Standards Groups. 41

LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access Protocol) 41

Microsoft's User Locator Service (ULS) 41

Directory Services for Interoperability with the PSTN.. 41

Dynamic DNS. 41

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