Skype Spooks Operators

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aswath 12/4/2012 | 11:17:54 PM

re: Skype Spooks Operators The article says that the anticipated spam problem can be controlled by "allow(ing) calls from people in your friends lists". Well and good. But when Skype interconnects with the PSTN, I guess we can only pity the "someone who refuses to migrate or to some third-world countries".

Aswath

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mr zippy 12/4/2012 | 11:17:53 PM

re: Skype Spooks Operators Clay Shirky has written an interesting article about networks like Skype, titled Customer-owned Networks: ZapMail and the Telecommunications Industry

Very interesting reading.

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mr zippy 12/4/2012 | 11:17:52 PM

re: Skype Spooks Operators Never managed to work out LR HTML fu, here is the URL to cut and paste :

http://shirky.com/writings/zap...

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aswath 12/4/2012 | 11:17:51 PM

re: Skype Spooks Operators With a plan to offer "a premium version, which will offer extra features (call holding, call waiting, multiple lines), conference calling, and voice mail", Skype is demonstrably not s student of Shirky. Existing technologies can be used to realize the objectives of "customer-owned" VoIP network with these and other extra features as well and of course NAT/Firewall traversal.

Aswath

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lastmile 12/4/2012 | 11:17:50 PM

re: Skype Spooks Operators http://www.lightreading.com/bo...
No one listened to me then!
When LR talks about it, suddenly people respond.
It is just not Skype that is Skoopy but the entire VOIP industry will crush POTS.
Revenue from POTS is similar to revenue from slave labor. In this case the slave is the Copper customer.
Happy Halloween.

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aswath 12/4/2012 | 11:17:48 PM

re: Skype Spooks Operators lastmile:

An innocent explanation for not listening may be that it is easy to miss a thread under "Reader Talk". If you search for Skype you will find a reasonable participation on this topic; probably some of them even answer a few of your questions.

Since the codec is a proprietary one, I think building a standalone device for Skype is really upto Skype.

Aswath

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dljvjbsl 12/4/2012 | 11:17:47 PM

re: Skype Spooks Operators
The comparison being made here between the PSTN and Skype is apt. There is quite a close connection in the types of services that are provided by Skype and POTS. In reading the references to SIP on the Skype pages, I find that the comparisons made there to be not very useful. SIP has been designed to exploit the opportunities provided by IP telephony. The services that SIP has been designed to accomplish are beyond what is possible in POTS (or Skype) and of a different order.

In brief, it is quite obvious that Skype has been designed with the device orientation that is the hallmark of POTS. With Skype one can call the device belonging to another person and hope that he is there. Skype assumes that the device at the other end is always connected and always on. It assumes a device that is very much like the ordinary telephone in that it is always connected and always running. The features that Skype will be able to accomplish with this are those that are focussed on the capabilities of the telephone set.

SIP, in contrast, is focussed on the connecting of people together. The provision of the proxy with a registration service and the use of a single address provides a service which spans the multiple devices that will be used by a single person and is indifferent to whether they are on or not. SIP in this way ahs been designed to exploit IP telephonyGÇÖs capability to exploit both person and device mobility. People will be able to be contacted no matter where they are on the most suitable device. One does not a device in SIP but the person.

The mobility aspect of SIP is provided by its normal session set up protocol that does not seem to have an explicit name. Another aspect of SIP is its event service. This allows the gathering and distribution of information that is relevant to the user and even specific calls. The event service can provide the means for sophisticated control of conference sessions. It provides the capability to modulate call operation to the current circumstances of the users.

SIP can do far more than this of course. It is an extensible open service. All the protocols are published. Textbooks are available to explain their operations and anyone can use them to develop and deploys new services. The proprietary nature Skype protocols precludes open development of course and they appear t be very limited in the types of services that they can provide.

Skype to me appears to be a dead end technology. It seems to be optimized to provide POTS like services with some capability of instant or semi-synchronous services. SIP is of course capable of providing all of this and more. To extend its capabilities Skype will have to move in the direction that SIP has already explored. The Skype developers may find more efficient protocols that the existing SIP protocols in doing this. However the basic SIP architecture appears to be the optimal one for IP telephony.

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boozoo 12/4/2012 | 11:17:35 PM

re: Skype Spooks Operators dljvjbsl,

I heard that the biggest problem with SIP is that it does not cross NAT firewalls without some configuration.
To me, this seems like a significant limitation that would slow down the adoption in 2 potentially big markets: homes with multiple PCs and work computers.

Where do you see the middle ground between the plug-and-play nature of skype and the feature-rich SIP?

cheers,

Boozoo

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sgan201 12/4/2012 | 11:17:34 PM

re: Skype Spooks Operators Hi boozoo,
"SIP does not cross NAT Firewalls"

That does not seem to be true.. Packet8 use SIP and somehow it works.. Check out www.packet8.net

Dreamer

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aswath 12/4/2012 | 11:17:33 PM

re: Skype Spooks Operators Ref. Msg #8: I heard that the biggest problem with SIP is that it does not cross NAT firewalls without some configuration.

All IP Communications be it SIP, Skype or IM chat applications have issues regarding NAT/Firewall traversal. (There is little difference between them as far as functional architecture goes; they use different protocols, that is all.)

Many solutions have been proposed to handle NAT issue; the most popular being placing some sort of relay function in the open internet. Skype utilizes community members' resources for this function whereas others have their own boxes.

By the way, it is possible that this may turn out to be the Achilles' heel of Skype if the number of members behind a NAT is much more than those who can provide the relay function.

Aswath

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