Page 60 - Asterisk™: The Future of Telephony

BRI is still sometimes used in place of analog circuits to provide trunking to a PBX.
Whether or not this is a good idea depends mostly on how your local phone company
prices the service, and what features it is willing to provide. #

IP telephones
IP telephones are heralds of the most exciting change in the telecommunications in-
dustry. Already now, standards-based IP telephones are available in retail stores. The
wealth of possibilities inherent in these devices will cause an explosion of interesting
applications, from video phones to high-fidelity broadcasting devices, to wireless mo-
bility solutions, to purpose-built sets for particular industries, to flexible all-in-one
multimedia systems.
The revolution that IP telephones will spawn has nothing to do with a new type of wire
to connect your phone to, and everything to do with giving you the power to commu-
nicate the way you want.
The early-model IP phones that have been available for several years now do not rep-
resent the future of these exciting appliances. They are merely a stepping-stone, a
familiar package in which to wrap a fantastic new way of thinking.
The future is far more promising.

Softphones
A softphone is a software program that provides telephone functionality on a non-tel-
ephone device, such as a PC or PDA. So how do we recognize such a beast? What might
at first glance seem a simple question actually raises many. A softphone should probably
have some sort of dial pad, and it should provide an interface that reminds users of a
telephone. But will this always be the case?
The term softphone can be expected to evolve rapidly, as our concept of what exactly
*
a telephone is undergoes a revolutionary metamorphosis. As an example of this evo-
lution, consider the following: would we correctly define popular communication
programs such as Instant Messenger as softphones? IM provides the ability to initiate
and receive standards-based VoIP connections. Does this not qualify it as a softphone?
Answering that question requires knowledge of the future that we do not yet possess.
Suffice it to say that while at this point in time, softphones are expected to look and
sound like traditional phones, that conception is likely to change in the very near future.
As standards evolve and we move away from the traditional telephone and toward a
multimedia communications culture, the line between softphones and physical tele-
phones will become blurred indeed. For example, we might purchase a communica-

# If you are in North America, give up on this idea, unless you have a lot of patience and money, and are a bit
of a masochist.
* Ever heard of Skype?

32 | Chapter 2: Preparing a System for Asterisk