Leading experts discussed SIP IP telephony in Prague

The SIP protocol, which is gaining more and more ground in the area of Internet (IP) telephony worldwide, was the main topic of the professional seminar IP telephony, organised by the CESNET association on Friday the 3rd of November in Prague. Almost eighty guests from the community of academic network administrators and other professionals took part in the event. The aim of the seminar was to present the foundations of the SIP protocol, which is based on the Internet standards, and to explain the solutions built on the protocol, which could be applied at individual workplaces. The leading domestic experts in this area had presentations during the day.

The CESNET association addresses IP telephony in its long-term research activities. The aim of the IP telephony activity realised via the national research and education network CESNET2 is development and improvement of the services of the IP telephony infrastructure. The activity is divided into several fields: research aimed at the quality of service, support of new protocols and services (SIP, ENUM etc.), support for IP clients, integration and the NGN technology.

The closed IP telephony networks restrict the manner of communication for their clients, this is the reason why the next goal of the group activities is integration from a geographical point of view – this means interconnection with other national networks for research and development and academic institutions – and also from the point of view of the means used (capabilities of the end user equipment, protocols, etc.). The aim is to use modern means of communication to create a quality environment for solving research and infrastructure tasks.

The IP telephony infrastructure of the CESNET2 network currently comprises over thirty connected PBXs, which ranks it among the most developed IP telephone networks in Europe.

CESNET association was founded by universities and the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic. It is currently financed primarily by its members and the Research and Development Council. The association operates and develops CESNET2, the national gigabit optical network intended for research and education, and participates in research and development of information and communication technologies. Thanks to its research activities and achieved results, CESNET association represents the Czech Republic in European GN2 project, as well as in other international projects. Among other countries, the association currently cooperates with Canada, the Netherlands, and the USA on the construction of GLIF (Global Lambda Integrated Facility), a global lambda network whose Czech section is called CzechLight.