Members of ITU SG16,

As many of you are probably are aware, the IETF has created a new working group, called iptel (IP Telephony), to develop some protocols related to Internet telephony. There has been a lot of confusion about this group and what it is (and isn't) doing, so as chair of this group, I'd like to provide some clarification.

Firstly, the group is not standardizing an alternative to H.323. The group will be standardizing two things, both of which are independent, orthogonal, and complementary to H.323.

The first output of the group is a call processing syntax. This is a directive which can be uploaded by a client to a server, such as a gatekeeper or gateway. When a call arrives at this server, the directive is processed, and a decision about what do to with the call is made. This allows clients to express preferences about call handling based on inputs such as caller, time of day, subject, media, etc.

The second output of the group is a protocol for distributing attributes to aid in the process of selecting a gateway to complete an IP to PSTN call. The protocol will focused on wide-area (aka inter-zone) distribution, where scalability is a serious concern. Likely it would be implemented by gateways and gatekeepers, adding greater reach to the existing intra-zone mechanism currently in RAS.

This work is quite complementary to both H.323 and the efforts of ITU SG16.

I would encourage those of you who are interested to attend the meeting for more details. In addition, you should join the group's mailing list. Instructions for doing so can be found at http://www.bell-labs.com/mailing-lists/iptel/.

Thanks, Jonathan R.

-- Jonathan D. Rosenberg Lucent Technologies Member of Technical Staff 101 Crawfords Corner Rd. High Speed Networks Research Holmdel, NJ 07733 FAX: (732) 834-5379 Rm. 4C-526 EMAIL: jdrosen@bell-labs.com URL: http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~jdrosen