Concluding the H.323 backbone project

["Enyeart, Mike" <>]

Its time to conclude our H.323 backbone project.   The GK will remain in service for at least the rest of the year, and we can add other sites as needed.  We would like to thank all participants, who comprise over 250,000 directory numbers.  Also, thanks to Cisco for their support of this project, especially Graham Gudgin. It is important to remember that the H.323 test bed was the project that got us all going.  It is now time to move on to bigger things. 

 

Our plan would be to establish an E.164 transition path that would use Cisco’s SIP trunking support.  We would generate a white paper by June of 2004 setting a strategy.  This would allow us to add non-Cisco sites to the fold. The GK will remain in service for at least the rest of the year, and we can still add other sites as needed. 

 

One issue that we had intended to make a part of the H.323 test bed that never came to fruition was that of an analysis of dialing plan strategies.  We have the legacy E.164, VIDE’s global numbering plan, ENUM, SIP URLs and other plans that have been discussed.  On top of this we have to keep in mind that H.323 appears to be around for video support and as one of our members so eloquently mentioned earlier this week we cannot forget about voice and video collaboration.  It is time to get on with a formal assessment of the pro and cons of each and come up with a formal recommendation. 

 

It is our hope that someone (or more than one) in the VOIP-WG community will step forward and take the lead on this initiative.  Please contact either Mike or Walt .edu if you would like to discuss this or better yet, volunteer.

 

Mike Enyeart

Walt Magnussen