Telia in unique IP telephony field trial

Telia in unique IP telephony field trial At the international "Voice on the Net" conference for IP telephony in Atlanta, Telia announced today that it will allow its 660,000 Internet access customers to make IP telephony calls using their e-mail addresses. This is achieved by using the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), which is becoming the standard for communication on IP networks. The field trial in line with Telia's strategy to provide customers with cutting-edge IP communication services. Telia's e-mail customers will be able to register at a web site from the beginning of October. This will create a SIP address identical to their e- mail address. They can download software and make PC to PC calls, to everyone with a SIP address. Nortel has developed the SIP server, client software and web application. Telia and Nortel firmly believe that SIP will become the future standard for Internet communications. Together they have developed Golden Gate*, a platform for telecom operators to introduce SIP-based services into their traditional networks. Already in June, Telia announced that it had provided its 27,000 employees with SIP addresses. "In SIP, the user has an address, rather than a physical device," says Jesper Wallentin, Project Manager at Telia Research. "The protocol makes service development and integration with web applications easier. In the future, the same SIP address can be used for video conferencing and network gaming." *Golden Gate is a direct translation of a Swedish concept called "Gyllene Grinden". Telia will also start advanced tests soon with IP telephony services. The new service will be tested by 1,000 households in Sweden who have been participating in a trial to test telephony service via a broadband network. Since June, 1,000 families subscribing to Umeå Energy's broadband access service in Umeå, Sweden, have been testing voice-over-IP via broadband. Telia is the first traditional network operator in the world to conduct such an advanced test on a large scale. Telia's technical partner and supplier for the Umeå trial and voice-over- IP is Komodo Technology (United States), a company that Telia has previously cooperated with. On September 11, Telia also signed an agreement with Ubiquity Software Corporation, a leaving provider of SIP- based services. "No other operator has ever attempted to do what we are doing and a lot of work remains to be done before we can offer a finished product," says Hans Eriksson, Project Manager at Telia. Carrier & Networks. "But we want to test the new technology in a large pilot project with real users." For further information journalists can contact: Umeå deployment trial: Hans G. Eriksson, Telia Carrier & Networks, phone +46 70 658 3185. For SIP: Claes Nycander, President, Telia Research AB, Sweden, +46 8 713 81 00, or Åsa Dahlgren-Sundquist, Communications Manager, Telia Research AB, Sweden, +46 8 713 8210. ------------------------------------------------------------ This information was brought to you by BIT http://www.bit.se The following files are available for download: http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/09/11/20000911BIT01240/bit0001.doc http://www.bit.se/bitonline/2000/09/11/20000911BIT01240/bit0002.pdf