February 2nd, 2006
Cable research industry working on new standard for VoIP enhancement
CableLabs, the research arm of the U.S. cable television industry, is preparing an updated standard that would enable its members to enhance their current VoIP offerings with video telephony, TV-based instant messaging, and integration of VoIP service with wireless.
This would be done via the forthcoming PacketCable 2.0 communications standard,an upgrade of the PacketCable 1.5 standard now in effect.
Considering that most cable companies are CableLabs members, the effect of the new 2.0 standard on VoIP and broadband services is likely to be huge.
Cable Digital News editor Alan Breznick notes that CableLabs director of PacketCable Architecture Eric Rosenfeld’s described these upgrades at the recent Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers Emerging Technologies Conference.
Breznick notes that Rosenfeld said that PacketCable 2.0 would incorporate support for SIP (Session Initiation Protocol). SIP support would be a welcome enabler for wireless and video telephony applications.
PacketCable 2.0 would also facilitate support for dual-mode cellular/Wi-Fi handsets, as well as call handoffs between VoIP/WiFi and cellular networks.
Russell Shaw is an enterprise computing journalist, analyst and author based in Portland, Oregon. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
