Darrin Woods is a Network Computing contributing editor. He has worked as a WAN engineer for a telecom carrier. Send your comments on this article to him at [email protected].
H.323: This granddaddy of convergence standards was approved by the ITU back in 1996 and is still going strong. See www.packetizer.com/iptel/h323/.
H.248: Aka MGCP (Media Gateway Control Protocol) and Megaco, this IETF and ITU standard goes beyond H.323 by specifying control of multiple gateways. See www.ietf.org/internet-drafts/draft-ietf-megaco-h248v2-01.txt.
SIP: RFC 2543 Session Initiation Protocol is an IETF standard that enables communication of multimedia elements, such as voice, chat and video. See www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2543.txt?number=2543.
802.1p: An IEEE standard. Provides QoS on Layer 2 by assigning user priority values.
Subsea cable alternatives can provide a level of comfort for those concerned about disruptions. Realistically, they will continue to play a small, but critical role in the short term.
Maintaining existing network infrastructures often incurs huge technical debt before newer technologies are adopted over time.
Amid ongoing regional uncertainties, telecom infrastructure in the Middle East has expand to include terrestrial low-latency network infrastructure, which offers resilience and agility in navigating political complexities without relying solely on undersea networks.
