Advantages of VoIP in the German research network

With the rise of telephony over the Internet, many institutes are looking at that new technology. Before it can be applied sensibly and meaningfully, many questions must be answered. The first one is about the interoperability of the end systems. It should be possible to change the vendor and implement new devices without any problems in the existing VoIP infrastructure. These ideas led to single VoIP labs, each group examining different problems. Examples are accounting, security and required quality of service within the transport network. The groups soon realized the benefit of interconnecting these labs. This was the beginning of the VoIP network in the German research network (G-WiN). Because of the heterogeneous hardware used by different bodies, the construction of a VoIP network has been a project in itself. The research work has not finished yet. There are still unresolved questions about accounting and security in a large VoIP network. Routing strategies have to be discussed as well as security questions. During the tests, VoIP has proved its position within the Internet as well as within standard telephony. The participants of the VoIP project managed to configure and use the VoIP components successfully. Nevertheless, it should not be concealed that much work has still to be done.