Q&A with Sonus Chief Technology Officer, Vikram Saksena

Can you explain the difference between an IP-voice service, like those Sonus enables, and an Internet VoIP service, like Skype?
While both IP-voice and Internet VoIP services leverage IP as the primary transport mechanism for voice calls there are dramatic differences in the quality, services, and business models for each service. IP-voice refers to services run over network operators' privately owned and operated networks. Internet VoIP services, like Skype, run over the public internet – the same network that's crowded with all the other traffic running over the World Wide Web.

You mentioned quality was a big difference. Why is that?
Privately managed IP networks, like those owned by the big network operators, offer the ability to route calls in a controlled environment. It enables network operators to treat voice and data traffic differently. For example, if your email arrives in your in box a second late, you probably wouldn't notice – but if there's a one second dead spot in between voice packets, that's something that impacts the user experience. A managed voice network will prioritize the voice traffic, whereas the public internet only offers a best effort attempt, treating all traffic the same.

If IP-voice offers better service and quality, why are people adopting Internet VoIP services?
There is a compelling business model today for Internet VoIP services, but it's narrow. Internet VoIP offers cheap, commodity phone calls. This type of service is especially attractive for international calls, where most carriers are still charging a price per minutes versus a flat-rate, all-you-can-talk monthly fee common for domestic call plans. Network operators are limited in their ability to offer the type of flat-rate services they do for domestic calls because most international calls are still routed over the PSTN, and each time that call touches a different network, toll charges apply.

That model is shifting though. Right now, the world is populated by islands of IP networks. Once IP becomes ubiquitous, however, there's nothing stopping the carriers from offering the same end-to-end IP-voice services for international calls and pass that saving along to the consumer.

So is the business model for IP-voice all about driving down costs?
Absolutely not. The real power of IP is the ability to introduce new applications and services into the communication experience. Take for example, the vast number of innovative new Web services that have been introduced over the past 10 years and compare that to the most groundbreaking advancements in traditional telecommunications networks? There is no real comparison. IP-voice networks help bring the Web model for application development and deployment into a world that has typically moved very slowly. The result is that in 10 years, communications will look nothing like what it looks like today.