I’m not sure I have a solid definition either…however here’s what I think UC should include.

• Networks (that’s Ethernet, fiber, wi-fi, cellular, satellite, wireless of any other form)
• VoIP Communication – that’s voice over IP (both IPV4 and IPV6), with a good dose of telephony features, call/contact centers etc.
• Voice – I break this out specifically because I have a very wired house (smart TV’s, network attached A/V receivers, Apple Airplay/TV, Roku, Xbox etc.) and it’s really starting to irritate me that I can’t walk from my car to my house on a call and move the call to any device in my house (or place of business)
• Video – this includes video conferencing/chat from any where to anywhere (a room, a smartphone, a tablet, my living room, my basement), video streaming from/to anywhere (YouTube, pick your favorite other site, corporate portal, a media server in my house), cable box – also would like this to work in the way my voice product would – walk in from anywhere and move the call to a device of my choosing

So all that being said what specifically do I want? I want it all to work together.

When a phone call comes in (any device), I’d like my cell/smartphone/tablet to know I’m sitting in my living room watching TV and mute the bloody audio.  It gets very irritating having to constantly find a remote when all these products could just do it for me (like the smartphones know to stop playing music when I get a call).  This problem gets even worse when I’m playing music in every area of my house via Airplay (wife and I love it, kids do not but they have Logitech G35 headphones that cover it up), so I can mute it in one room, but not in others. I’d also like it to ask if I can do video with this call (similar to what Apple’s Facetime can do and the things being seen in Android 4.0).

I’d also like my media streaming experience to be a bit better.  Apple sort of gets it with their cloud Apple TV/iPhone/iPad/iCloud linking.  The big issue here is they aren’t the only game in my house.  I have network storage, I have cloud based PC backup/file access and numerous other places I store things.  I want ONE cloud that is inclusive of all my media.  Sorry Apple but no, I’m not paying for more than 5GB of space in your cloud when I have 6TB in my house (running on raid 5 no less) so make it work.  I’ll also take a moment to rail against the cable box manufacturer’s and MPAA/RIAA.  Yes I know people like to pirate things.  I’ll admit 12 years ago I used to do it because it was far easier than ripping 600 CD’s (my + wife’s collection at the time).  Today’s I can purchase audio and video from iTunes, Amazon and a million other places and that’s what I do.

So start letting my devices talk to each other so I can stream what I want, where I want and when I want it.  I don’t want to purchase expensive HD Tivo boxes to replace my cable boxes just so I can have streaming content, especially since my Roku and Apple TV and Xbox don’t speak Tivo’s language very well.  Piracy will always exist (even in the Star Trek universe) no matter what anyone does.  I’m not saying don’t copy protect, just don’t make convenience impossible (I’m specifically referring to things like HDCP and the encrypting the heck out of my “whole house” cable boxes so I can’t do a single thing with them).

So what I’ve said is getting a bit ranty – but I’m trying to make a point. Everything talks IP now and almost everything supports the proper formats (H.264, Mpeg4, G.711, G.722 etc.).

So let it loose.

As of now (thanks to some urging from some business associates) I think I’ve found my voice and it resides within UC (that’s Unified Communications).  It’s where I do most of my work now and it is a topic of discussion almost everywhere.

Over the coming days I will start publishing my thoughts and views on the entire universe of UC.  It is important to note that my views do not reflect that of my employer.

I work for Polycom now. I am technically in sales, but have many roles within the company.

My current project – help sell our new business media phone that is certified for use in Cisco environments.

Check it out here:

VVX 1500 C

My apologies for the product shill.

To top it all off, EA (Electronic Arts) with the launch of Battlefield 2142 is now bundling spyware in its product.  They want to better target advertising.  So, if you pay $50 for this game, all of your Internet activity will be monitored by EA, so they can advertise to you more than they already do.

Now, I’ll admit, I’ll play a game every now and again.  I own Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield 2.  But if this is the direction EA is taking things, I’m done buying their junk.

I have enough problems keeping my computers running smoothly without someone else messing up  my system just so I can get better advertising.

Good job EA, you just lost another customer.

Now I need to actually start writing things again.

First, I’d rather get punched in the face every time I walk outside, rather than deal with 117 degree heat.

My dislike for extreme temperatures aside, this was by far the most interesting Networkers I’ve been to.

I think the most common discussion I had was people’s now general dislike of John Chambers.

I must admit, I myself have noticed a change in the company. Many of its employees have become elitist, snobbish, and downright hard to deal with. The once great “get it done right now matter what” attitude seems to be gone. The spirit of the company has also become extremely hard-core coporate – and not good corporate either. More like bogged down in crap corporate. Reminds me of the old IBM in a way.

Combine this with things like charging ten times over for memory, and other assorted issues, and you’ve got a bad situation developing.

My personal feeling is that after the crash Chambers kept them together, but never really pulled them into the next era well. Yes they have brought new products out, some of which are great, some of which are not.

Would I buy some other vendor’s switch? Doubtful, but this leads to an interesting point.

If someone brought out a new switch/router/security device that matched Cisco’s device in performance, but it was cheaper, I’d most definitely buy it. Will this happen?

Additionally, Cisco’s partner relationship has been somewhat quirky – they tell someone to make product X, but when Cisco needs more revenue, they will start making that product X and essentially push the partner out of that market. I understand the need for renevue growth, they are a public company.

But these new attitudes are disturbing, and not at all what their customer base deserves.

Cisco has also been having hiring problems. No one wants into that culture now, where before you couldn’t find enough people to get in.

I think it’s time for a new leader, and Chambers should step aside. He’s done well for the company, but he’s lost his leadership edge. New blood, new direction and new spirit are needed – now.

I’ve never been very political.

I voted for Bush, I voted for Clinton.

I support the war, but I seriously question how it was executed.

Could Clinton have spared us much of this by taking Bin Laden when offered?

Does Congress actually do anything besides frivolously spend our hard-earned money?

I digress.

But this latest thing, “net neutrailty” is becoming quite disturbing. Large telco’s want more money. They are paying congress to make it happen.

If they want more f*cking money, why not try provding real service? Like a phone-tech that isn’t rude. Or a phone bill that isn’t riddled with bullshit services. Maybe they’ll actually retain some customers then eh?

At the heart of the matter, the telco’s are claiming that all these web sites are making money off of their networks – without paying for it – so the telcos want to build their “own” Internet. So they can charge the web sites more, or they’ll slow the traffic down. Can anyone say RICO?
Let’s examine this more closely:

I pay my cable company for Internet access ($69.95/month for 8MB down/512k up – Time Warner/RoadRunner premium service).

Web hosters pay for access to large pipes (data centers, co-location facilities, or even direct T3/OCx etc).

How are the telcos not getting paid for their wires?

There are bills in Washington right now. Contact your representatives and senators in Congress and tell them net neutrality is essential, before it is too late.
Please.

After having had a very interesting conversation with someone in the VoIP security/resiliency field, I got to thinking more about this.

SIP by its very nature might not be well suited to enhance communications because it isn’t a very stateful protocol. There’s the initial setup, and unless some feature needs to be performed on a call, the RTP stream is about the only thing out there. Because of it’s very transactional nature, this makes it difficult to truly manage, compared to something like SS7.

A more stateful/windowed approach to a protocol might be more practical, something similar to the constant communication Cisco has with its phones when using SCCP (Skinny). This would allow better tracking and capabilities through firewalls, proxies, SBC’s and the like. This better approach may also allow better security simply because the call would be truly “active” (RTP bearer stream and an active control channel). This could facilitate alternate routing such as what SS7 does with its separate paths for call control and bearer traffic. For me it is almost ironic, because I used to frequently bash SS7 as inferior for having split paths. I can admit I was seriously misguided.
Don’t get me wrong, I think SIP is a great thing. It promotes open-source applications, a great developer community, and (at least for now) some decent vendor interoperability. SIP has brought us things like Vonage and Skype which have facilitated communication far beyond what some people twenty years ago might never have thought possible.
I simply think we need to take a closer look at what we want from our networks going forward.

We need security.

We need reliability (gobs more).

We need functionality.

We need to be able to monitor it all, no matter where it is.

Is this too much to ask?

I have, and so have several folks I’ve spoken to.

In my eyes, I’m seeing, and feeling a lack of support from Cisco.

Yes, TAC is still there, however, not all TAC centers are created equal. From the discussions I have had with numerous people, almost everyone’s TAC experience has gone down the drain. Couple this with the lack of SE’s we seem to be seeing, and one must wonder what’s going on inside Cisco.

One individual I spoke with theorizes that Cisco is becoming a more sales oriented company. I couldn’t argue with that statement. If this is the direction Cisco is going, that is to say moving away from it’s fantastic support model in the 90′s, this is going to become a problem. One that will eventually hurt the sales it is so desperately seeking.

I can understand the need to grow revenue, but not at the expense of the customer base. How about rebuilding that fantastic support system it had? A recent discussion I had with a Cisco partner (they were also an HP partner, MS partner and part of several other vendor programs) yielded an interesting bit of info.

The person I was speaking to told me of a discussion that he had when the Cisco account team came in. Apparently the Cisco team wasn’t happy this partner was still selling HP switches. This partner’s response was – the HP switches fill a need, they are cheaper and have a lifetime warranty. They fit in many situations where any Cisco switch with similar capacity was siginificantly more expensive. Cisco apparently yelled at them, got upset, and stopped short of major threats. That is not the Cisco I know.

The Cisco I know of years past would have found a way to compete, not bully. They would have offered better support. Perhaps if Cisco tried the “lowering taxes brings in more money trick” with its products, it might get the sales it wants. In other words, lower prices, put a better warranty on a product (I think Cat6509′s have a whopping 90 day warranty), and you’d sell more.

I am by no means scientific in my analysis of what might be going on. But one has to wonder what really is going on.

Build something that uses IPIVR/IPQM on the CRS system.
Build a call flow that transfers some callers from the CRS/IPIVR/IPQM to an external IVR.

Have those transfers cross a QSIG trunk.

If a “connected number” display IE comes back in response to one of those transfers, your CTI ports on the CRS system will eventually permanently die.  You won’t get them back until you reset the CRS engine.
Sound bad?  Well it’s true.  Turn off connected number display from the far side of the QSIG link and all will be fine.

Bug ID forthrcoming soon.