Peering, wireless grab spotlight at VON

Voice over IP peering, which can essentially cut out the local telco and thus save costs, promises to be one of several hot topics at this year's VON Europe conference, starting Tuesday in Stockholm.

Enterprise peering, where companies can connect their private IP (Internet Protocol) networks directly to other companies they do business with, represents a significant shift in the way enterprises manage their networks and is a subject leaders will likely discuss at the conference.

The process is essentially "insourcing telecom spend," said James Enck, European telecom analyst at Daiwa Securities SMBC Europe Ltd. As an example, although one that involves just one company with many offices, he cites an announcement earlier this year that Royal Bank of Canada would convert fully to voice over IP (VOIP), directly connecting the IP networks of its offices.

"Instead of paying Bell Canada for use of the PSTN [public switched telephone networks], they're emigrating all of their internal traffic between offices onto their IT network and the IT department will manage this," he said.

A similar peering movement could help reduce even further the cost of VOIP calls for other users, and speakers at a voice over cable panel session at VON could touch on the subject. Some VOIP service providers, such as cable operators, are beginning to offer free calls to other VOIP customers, even those on different networks, as a way to compete against telcos. To make that offering efficient, the operators are finding ways to connect directly to each other without involving the telcos.

Several cable operators in the Netherlands, for example, are using a third party, XConnect Global Networks Ltd., to handle the call routing without relying on the PSTN, Enck said. XConnect helps cut costs for the cable operators so that they can offer free calling to end users. "They lose some revenue but they want to get customers so that they can sell them TV or other services," Enck noted.

In the wireless domain, moves to similarly circumvent the operators are being met with resistance, another topic sure to spur debate at VON. This week, T-Mobile UK Ltd. said it forbids the use of VOIP for users subscribing to a new mobile data plan. While that move is related to customers using data cards on their PCs, it could worry third party developers of VOIP clients for mobile phones.

"It's a big discussion topic," said Ross Brennan, chief executive officer of Cicero Networks Ltd., the developer of a VOIP client for converged Wi-Fi and cellular phones. He hasn't seen many operators actually blocking such calls and also believes those that do might be met with legal challenges.

VOIP software client developers are already responding to the threat. In early May it emerged that Skype Technologies SA tweaked the most recent version of its software to be harder to detect and thus block.

Other topics likely to be in the spotlight at VON include debates on the implications of the deployment of IMS (Internet protocol multimedia subsystem) and the movement to triple and quadruple play services.