Tzah 2.0

Skype for SIP beta program, announced last week, is a big step for the VoIP industry. Still, as I said before, Skype has more way to go before it becomes truly interoperable and could provide advanced VoIP features. Currently, Skype for SIP is aimed at organizations with IP-PBX wishing to integrate its SIP standard with Skype. It is not known at this time when, and if, Skype will launch a similar program for individuals.

Well, until that happens, you might consider using Freeswitch’s skypiax module. Though only two months on the trunk source code and still in beta stage, it’s quite stable and can be used on both Linux and Windows OS. IT guys and developers should have no problem using it for their organizations or even private use. You could see a great video by Kulwinder Singh explaining how to configure the module on windows and possible usages. Using Freeswitch strength, you could connect your Skype IDs to SIP servers, combine with advanced dial-plans and even bridge a Skype call To GoogleTalk! now that’s really cool!

Skype has made a huge move this week announcing . Organizations that have IP-PBX systems can connect it to Skype using SIP. The service, which is currently in beta, has two major benefits to businesses. First, it allows Skype users to connect to the organization using their account. The second, it enables the organizations to make PSTN calls using SkypeOut and saves money.

This is a great day for the VoIP industry. Once Skype users decide to use their account to make a call to an organization, rather than make a regular phone call, the trend towards an all-IP networks would gain more momentum. Furthermore, coupling Skype for business with the use of twitter for direct contact with customers, this service demonstrate the strength that the web/IP has to offer for organizations.

Another reason to celebrate is that Skype, that uses its own standards for signaling and media, has finally integrates with the SIP standard which make them more interoperable. However, it seems that for now, the integration has limited the service functionality to mere calls. That means no presence information, file sharing, text chatting and other great features which only VoIP (we should think of a new name) can deliver. If this remains true, people might start wondering why they should invest their time and energy with a new service that provides them the same functionality they had so far. I truly hope that Skype will enhance the service or otherwise, this entire experiment might cause damage to our industry.

Finally, there’s another aspect that we in the VoIP industry should ponder about. Individuals, as well as organizations, have abundant ways to get in touch with. We have PSTN numbers, emails, twitter, Skype, Windows Messenger, Yahoo messenger, GoogleTalk, and the list goes on and on. What we need is one URI which will map to the specific communication channels of the user. Another service is a global golden page for all those channels. Let’s say I’m looking for John Smith. the service will provide me its URI which in turn, upon sending IM or calling it, will map the request to John’s favorite channel. There’s much more to discuss about this so I’ll leave it to a future post.