Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) And One University Application

Internet telephony is emerging as an inexpensive alternative to the high costs of long distance and transcontinental calls. Colleges and universities may also benefit from this technology shift. This paper addresses the impact of new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies and the business conditions moving consumers to consider the new technologies.  Two models: technology push and market pull, identify the stakeholders in the move to VoIP technologies. The models are discussed and applied to the needs of a college campus providing traditional and nontraditional education delivery methods

Standard Selection Modes in Dynamic, Complex Industries: Creating Hybrids between Market Selection and Negotiated Selection of Standards

Several sectors within Information and Communication Technology demonstrate a shift from purely market-based selection of standards or purely negotiated selection of standards to hybrid selection processes, where both market competition and negotiation play a role. Negotiated standard setting processes (such as those organised by the ITU) assure interoperability of technical components and services. Private firms, however, increasingly tend to undercut these collective actions. Their innovations jump-start new developments, but also create incompatibilities, lock-in effects, and pockets of market power. Internet telephony is an example, where firms, standard setting alliances, and political institutions create a hybrid market-based / negotiated standard setting environment. The paper explores the development of this hybrid networking environment. It posits propositions which are illustrated by means of case studies of the DVD and Internet telephony.industrial organization ;

Internet Governance : exploring the development link

This paper seeks to explore the issues of Internet governance from a development perspective. The WSIS process and the report of the UN Working group on Internet Governance provide an initial framework within which to develop the issues. These issues not only concern the equitable distribution of Internet resources and the ways in which a secure and reliable function of the Internet can be achieved, but also include issues of multi-lingualism and local content as well as the institutional setting of Internet governance mechanisms and participation. The paper observers that realising the contribution of the Internet to development goals requires a shift in policy focus away from supply side initiatives in the telecommunications sector to more co-ordinated approaches

Internet Governance: exploring the development link

This paper seeks to explore the issues of Internet governance from a development perspective. The WSIS process and the report of the UN Working group on Internet Governance provide an initial framework within which to develop the issues. These issues not only concern the equitable distribution of Internet resources and the ways in which a secure and reliable function of the Internet can be achieved, but also include issues of multi-lingualism and local content as well as the institutional setting of Internet governance mechanisms and participation. The paper observers that realising the contribution of the Internet to development goals requires a shift in policy focus away from supply side initiatives in the telecommunications sector to more co-ordinated approaches.Internet governance; development; Internet resources; access

A Model for Emergency Service of VoIP Through Certification and Labeling

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) will transform many aspects of traditional telephony service including technology, the business models and the regulatory constructs that govern such service. This transformation is generating a host of technical, business, social and policy problems. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) could attempt to mandate obligations or specific solutions to the policy issues around VoIP, but is instead looking first to industry initiatives focused on key functionality that users have come to expect of telecommunications services. High among these desired functionalities is access to emergency services that allow a user to summon fire, medical or law enforcement agencies. Such services were traditionally required (and subsequently implemented) through state and federal regulations. Reproducing emergency services in the VoIP space has proven to be a considerable task, if for no other reason then the wide and diverse variety of VoIP implementations and implementers. Regardless of this difficulty, emergency service capability is a critical social concern, making it is particularly important for the industry to propose viable solutions for promoting VoIP emergency services before regulators are compelled to mandate a solution, an outcome that often suffers compromises both through demands on expertise that may be better represented in industry and through the mechanisms of political influence and regulatory capture. While technical and business communities have, in fact, made considerable progress in this area, significant uncertainty and deployment problems still exist. The question we ask is: can an industry based certification and labeling process credibly address social and policy expectations regarding emergency services and VoIP, thus avoiding the need for government regulation at this critical time?1 We hypothesize that it can. To establish this, we developed just such a model for VoIP emergency service compliance through industry certification and device labeling. The intent of this model is to support a wide range of emergency service implementations while providing the user some validation that the service will operate as anticipated. To do this we first examine possible technical implementations for emergency services for VoIP. Next, we summarize the theory of certification as self-regulation and examine several relevant examples. Finally, we synthesize a specific model for certification of VoIP emergency services. We believe that the model we describe provides both short term and long-term opportunities. In the short term, an industry driven effort to solve the important current problem of emergency services in VoIP, if properly structured and overseen as we suggest, should be both effective and efficient. In the long term, such a process can serve as a model for the application of self-regulation to social policy goals in telecommunications, an attractive tool to have as telecommunications becomes increasingly diverse and heterogeneous

A Horizontal Leap Forward: Formulating a New Communications Public Policy Framework Based on the Network Layers Model

Over the course of the last several decades, legal and structural fictions have evolved and have been integrated into the reality of communications theory and regulation. In this Article, the Author argues that the development of a layers approach to communications regulation of IP networks would lead to greater efficiencies while addressing public policy issues. By reconceptualizing communications regulation along horizontal layers, Mr. Whitt posits that the logical walls surrounding the key components of IP networks should be removed to promote increased functionality of communications oversight and management. In this way, the outmoded vertical separation associated with the legal legacy of communications regulation may be replaced by a horizontal system designed to accommodate new technologies and functions, as opposed to attempting to force congruency between new network characteristics and twentieth century regulations