ITUA Inc - e164.org Press Release - SipGate network changes
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The ITUA recently became aware that SipGate, one of Europe's leading Internet Telephony providers, decision to close it's network to unidentified calls, SipGate's indicated the need for this action is due to a potential problem of "spam" in future.
"We are concerned in general", says Duane Groth of ITUA, "about industry efforts to deny external access and limit people from taking advantage of newer technologies to leverage cost-effective solutions to communicate with others."
Those associated with ITUA fear this may set Internet telephony back a decade to where fractured systems were the only choice, and even today this still occurs with leading Voice over IP providers Skype and Vonage.
Current examples of fractured networks that don't communicate include the case of Instant Messaging providers, people with accounts on MSN, AOL, Yahoo! or ICQ are required to use multiple accounts, or suffer from the inability to message friends and family.
If the same thing occurred with Email, we would all be locked into our own little islands unable to communicate with other people on other networks we are not directly apart of, or forced to pay "postage" to have the emails printed out and physically delivered, either by the postal service or faxes.
The ITUA is a strong supporter of facilitating cross Internet communication through standards compliant directory services, notably the use of technologies such as the e164.org ENUM root, but also in addressing industry wide concerns in a constructive manner.
Using Internet standards, providers are able to offer services in a healthy competitive environment without the traditional monopolistic practises seen in legacy telephone networks. Which give consumers the freedom to choose providers without limiting their ability to communicate with friends and family at increased costs.
Presently there is a very little evidence of spamming over the Internet beyond anecdotal accounts, however now is the time for service providers to work collaboratively to prevent future abuses that have occurred in the case of Email over the Internet.
The ITUA is in the middle of launching a VoIP Spam task force to attack the perceived spam problem on multiple fronts, including discussions with industry bodies on self regulation and governments on extending Do Not Call lists to cover VoIP as well as existing telephony networks, the ITUA would like for the wider Telephony community to cooperate on this.
There are some options that can be leveraged immediately, such as SIP-TLS and inclusion of identity certificates issued by organisations like CAcert.org and Verisign would greatly aide in the issue of unidentified VoIP calls traversing the Internet.
The Internet Telephony User's Association is a non-profit organisation dedicated to enabling Internet telephony through Internet standard based technologies. ITUA, Inc operates the e164.org ENUM root as public a service for individuals, companies, organisations and service providers throughout the world on a donation basis.
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The ITUA recently became aware that SipGate, one of Europe's leading Internet Telephony providers, decision to close it's network to unidentified calls, SipGate's indicated the need for this action is due to a potential problem of "spam" in future.
"We are concerned in general", says Duane Groth of ITUA, "about industry efforts to deny external access and limit people from taking advantage of newer technologies to leverage cost-effective solutions to communicate with others."
Those associated with ITUA fear this may set Internet telephony back a decade to where fractured systems were the only choice, and even today this still occurs with leading Voice over IP providers Skype and Vonage.
Current examples of fractured networks that don't communicate include the case of Instant Messaging providers, people with accounts on MSN, AOL, Yahoo! or ICQ are required to use multiple accounts, or suffer from the inability to message friends and family.
If the same thing occurred with Email, we would all be locked into our own little islands unable to communicate with other people on other networks we are not directly apart of, or forced to pay "postage" to have the emails printed out and physically delivered, either by the postal service or faxes.
The ITUA is a strong supporter of facilitating cross Internet communication through standards compliant directory services, notably the use of technologies such as the e164.org ENUM root, but also in addressing industry wide concerns in a constructive manner.
Using Internet standards, providers are able to offer services in a healthy competitive environment without the traditional monopolistic practises seen in legacy telephone networks. Which give consumers the freedom to choose providers without limiting their ability to communicate with friends and family at increased costs.
Presently there is a very little evidence of spamming over the Internet beyond anecdotal accounts, however now is the time for service providers to work collaboratively to prevent future abuses that have occurred in the case of Email over the Internet.
The ITUA is in the middle of launching a VoIP Spam task force to attack the perceived spam problem on multiple fronts, including discussions with industry bodies on self regulation and governments on extending Do Not Call lists to cover VoIP as well as existing telephony networks, the ITUA would like for the wider Telephony community to cooperate on this.
There are some options that can be leveraged immediately, such as SIP-TLS and inclusion of identity certificates issued by organisations like CAcert.org and Verisign would greatly aide in the issue of unidentified VoIP calls traversing the Internet.
The Internet Telephony User's Association is a non-profit organisation dedicated to enabling Internet telephony through Internet standard based technologies. ITUA, Inc operates the e164.org ENUM root as public a service for individuals, companies, organisations and service providers throughout the world on a donation basis.
