SIP in higher education

[(Dennis Baron)]

SIP.edu Conference Call September 29, 2005

*Attendees*

Dennis Baron, MIT
Candace Holman, Harvard
Jeff Kuure, Internet 2
Ben Teitelbaum, Internet 2
Mike Van Norman, UCLA

*Discussion*

Today's call is brief, with only five participants. Candace mentions
that Ben's salesmanship has almost convinced her of the utility of ISN,
but she still needs to do some research. Ben's argument is that if 25%
of users begin using next-generation SIP devices, there needs to be a
way for the other 75% to contact them or they will not continue to use
these as their primary devices; some sort of number-only system needs
to be in place for the next fifteen years or so.

Mike mentions that there is no compelling reason for people to move to new
devices yet, as there is not a critical mass of reachable users. Users
will continue to fall back to other devices and IM clients because the
people they want to reach are already there. He would also like to see
better SIP integration into a desktop environment - if he sees a number on
screen and has to make the effort to type it in, he's more likely to pick
up a telephone. If the number was some type of hyperlink, he'd choose
to use something new. Candace agrees, but believes this will be more
difficult to accomplish as the developers who understand call processing
will have to cooperate more closely with user interface developers.

Dennis asks if anyone has played with video on eyeBeam, specifically
interoperability with other clients. Candace mentions that she has done
it with eyeBeam and Session, and it worked well. Dennis says interest in
eyeBeam seems to be picking up on MIT's campus, and thinks it would be
interesting to have hard-phone and eyeBeam interoperability. Mike mentions
that the eyeBeam client isn't bad, but most of the communication he's seen
with it is instant messaging, not voice; in his experience people don't
want several clients for different things, they want one client that does
it all - like Gaim, which integrates several IM protocols. Currently, Mike
finds eyeBeam to be more complex than using a phone with UCLA's integrated
campus directory. Candace's opinion is that clients such as eyeBeam
could make things easier with voice-recognition, directory integration,
speed dial storage of dozens of numbers, and call logging. Dennis mentions
that he's using call logging more to return calls, and Ben mentions that
privacy concerns may appear with regards to call logs.

Dennis asks about VON, which he missed. Candace attended the SIP update,
which didn't provide much information. She had hoped for more Cisco
presence information, but it consisted mostly of discussion of NAT and
a new IETF working group called Behave. There was also no update about
the Libretel business plan.

Finally, Mike asks about the recent FCC CALIA ruling and its impact
on educational organizations, law enforcement access to PBX traffic,
and SIP.edu. Ben mentions that the ruling has no technical details, and
says that universities and libraries might be exempted. Ben says that
this ruling will continue to be litigated, so this is not the final
word. He feels that since the Internet is specifically exempted from
CALIA, the FCC seems to be overstepping their bounds.

The next call will be Thursday, October 20.