Disruptive Telephony

Goodbye to SkypeKit... and perhaps more importantly to the developer.skype.com website. Prominently featured there now is a banner saying the site will close on July 31, 2014:

Leaving aside the bizarre way to end the warning banner ("... to integrate with" and then nothing more), I went to the site because I received an email from Skype in the form of a "SkypeKit License Termination Notice". The email says in full:

Dear Dan ,

In July 2013, we notified you of our intention to end support for our SkypeKit SDK at the end of July 2014. With this date now approaching, this email serves as 30 days’ official notice of termination of the SkypeKit Licence Agreement (“Agreement”) pursuant to Section 13.2.4 of the Agreement. The Agreement will end on July 31st 2014. Upon termination of the Agreement you must promptly destroy all copies of the SkypeKit SDK in your possession or control, except that if you have already entered into the SkypeKit Distribution Terms and have received a commercialization keypair for your SkypeKit Product(s) then you may continue to distribute these SkypeKit Products(s).

Skype will not be issuing any new keypairs and we remind you that keypairs may only be used in connection with the SkypeKit Product for which they were issued. In addition, for hardware, keypairs may only be used for the specific version of the SkypeKit Product that was certified through our hardware certification program. Our hardware certification program for SkypeKit Products has now closed and no new hardware (including new models or versions of previously certified hardware) can be distributed.

Key investments in Skype’s application and service architecture may cause the Skype features to stop working without notice in SkypeKit products. As a result, we encourage you to end any further distribution of SkypeKit products.

We would also like to draw to your attention to the obligations that survive termination of the Agreement as described in Section 16.3 of the SkypeKit Licence Agreement.

The Skype Developer website will also close on July 31st, 2014. If you have any queries please contact Skype Developer Support.

Kind regards
Skype Developer Team

Looking back, I don't see the email from July 2013, but in truth I probably deleted it or it wound up in a spam folder. Sadly, I long ago lost much of my interest in Skype's latest developer follies.

If we jump back in time a bit, Skype first released a "preview" of their "SkypeKit" Software Development Kit (SDK) back in early 2011. Jim Courtney had a great writeup of their release of the public beta at eComm 2011. Like many others, I signed up and paid my $10 to see what was under the hood. I didn't do much with it but I remember looking at the python SDK a bit. Later in October 2011 I wrote about Skype's renaming of their public APIs and provided some clarification about what SkypeKit was all about.

And then I pretty much wrote nothing else about it... and much of the program gradually started fading away. In all my many posts about Skype, the only subsequent mention I find of SkypeKit was in a September 2010 post about Grandstream adding in Skype video to their IP phones.

In fairness, this was all happening before and then during the Microsoft acquisition of Skype in 2011 and so it was not surprising to see APIs created before Microsoft's acquisition being phased out.

What continues to surprise me is that there has never been any real replacement. Skype's 5th, 6th or 7th attempt (I lost track) at a developer program finally... just... died...

The folks at Skype wrote last November about the demise of the Desktop API and the need to support mobile devices. With that API's demise they also killed off their App Directory, which was their latest incarnation of a way to help developers get their apps out to Skype users.

Now Skype's entire "developer support" seems to be a category of pages on their support site, most of which seem to have answers about how the Skype Developer Program is no longer accepting registrations... or about why certain systems no longer work.

I get it... applications evolve. And Skype certainly has evolved away from its roots. It's just too bad, because once upon a time there seemed to be such promise for Skype as a communication platform that could be used widely by other companies and applications.

R.I.P. SkypeKit.

R.I.P. Skype Developer Program.

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Today I'm back at the Hyatt Dulles in Herndon, Virginia, for the fourth SIP Network Operators Conference (SIPNOC) event. These SIPNOC sessions are great because they bring together the people actually operating the SIP-based networks that make up our telecommunications infrastructure. SIPNOC continues to be THE best place I've found to interact with the people actually taking SIP standards and making them happen in the "real world".

I've been to all four SIPNOCs - and I continue to find them outstanding events, not only because of the excellent technical content, but also because of the people.

In many cases, these are the "phone guys" (and gals) who have found their way to IP. The "Bellheads" of the age-old "Bellhead vs Nethead" debate. The "telcos". The people who have been doing telecom for decades... and are now evolving to IP.

In other cases, the people here are the new contenders. The cable companies are here - and they are strongly challenging the legacy telcos, and they are creating entirely new IP-based infrastructures. The "Internet Telephony Service Providers (ITSPs)" and "SIP Trunking" providers are here, too... companies that are reimagining what telecom can be in an IP space. Newer vendors... newer application providers... etc.

It's a wonderful mix of people.

All here talking about telecom in the age of the Internet... sponsored by the SIP Forum.

As I mentioned in a post yesterday on the Deploy360 blog, I will be speaking today at SIPNOC 2014 about TLS for SIP. The abstract for my talk is:

With concerns about large-scale pervasive monitoring on the Internet, many groups are encouraging the increased use of Transport Layer Security (TLS, what we used to call “SSL”). While SIP has had TLS support for quite some time, it is often not used. This session will look at concerns of using TLS with SIP and discuss opportunities for providing higher security for SIP-based communication. The session will also outline some newer innovations such as the DANE protocol that when coupled with DNSSEC can provide a higher level of trust for TLS encryption.

This relates largely to the "TLS for Applications" work we are doing within Deploy360, as well as our advocacy for the use of the DANE protocol to add a layer of trust to TLS/SSL certificates.

As I note in that Deploy360 post, I'm delighted to see on the SIPNOC agenda that speaking before me will be Carl Klatsky from Comcast providing a case study of the lessons they have learned so far in moving to IPv6!

It's kind of fun to scan my list of presentations and look back at what I've spoken about at the past SIPNOC events:

SIPNOC 2011 (employed at Voxeo)

1. SIP Adoption and Network Security
2. Lessons Learned in Large-Scale SIP Interoperability

SIPNOC 2012 (employed at Voxeo)

1. SIP and IPv6 – Can They Get Along?
2. Panel Discussion: SIP Adoption and Network Security
3. BOF: SIP and IPv6

SIPNOC 2013 (employed at Internet Society)

1.IPv6 And SIP – Myth or Reality?
2. Who are You Really Calling? How DNSSEC Can Help
3. Panel Discussion: Anatomy of a VoIP DMZ (moderator)

SIPNOC 2014 (employed at Internet Society)

1. Is It Time For TLS For SIP? (also includes some DNSSEC/DANE)

It's nice to have someone else talking about IPv6 this year!

Of course, you'll also find me in the VoIP security BOF tonight... and listening to the other sessions. Unfortunately I have something else happening tomorrow evening back in New Hampshire and so I'm only here at SIPNOC today and will be flying back tomorrow. The SIPNOC event continues all day tomorrow and half a day on Thursday.

Sessions are underway now... here is photo proof:

Unless you happen to be located in the DC area, it would be very hard for anyone to join into this year's SIPNOC event... but if you work with SIP or VoIP networks, I would strongly encourage you to put SIPNOC 2015 on your calendar for next year!

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I was greatly saddened to learn today of the death of Simon Gwatkin this past weekend. For those of us in the VoIP / telecom space, the world is a little bit darker now.

I came to know Simon when I worked at Mitel Networks in Ottawa from 2001-2007, although it wasn't really until the later years when I wound up working in Mitel's Office of the CTO and looking more strategically at what the future might hold for companies like Mitel. A lot of my research and time wound up being spent looking at social media and the changing communication landscape. With Simon's role as head of strategic marketing at Mitel we wound up having any number of quite lengthy conversations about where things were going. We didn't always agree, which led to very useful and valuable discussions. Simon also got me engaged with industry analysts and helped set me down a path that was quite useful in many later years.

I also spent a good bit of time interacting with some of the startups that were being nurtured under the umbrella of Wesley Clover, the investment vehicle of Sir Terry Matthews. Simon was involved with Terry's investments there and had this intense passion for helping new entrepeneurs. (And starting in 2008 had a more permanent role with Wesley Clover.) He was fascinated by the communications business (both the telecom kind of "communications" as well as the marketing/PR kind) and by all the different ways we communicate.

When I was part of the large layoff that happened when Mitel purchased Inter-Tel in 2007, Simon helped with his vast network of contacts to try to find a place for me to land. While I ultimately wound up at Voxeo by virtue of some of the blogging I was doing, a couple of his leads were ones that I explored.

After that we stayed in touch over the years and increasingly found ourselves interacting more with each other through Facebook and social networks. One of his sons was doing something with security work at one point, and I'd shared some VoIP security resources I knew of. A few years back when my wife was dealing with breast cancer, a good friend of Simon's was battling it, too, and so we shared information - and shared with each other that intense frustration of being unable to do a whole lot to help someone we care about.

Along the way we had fun teasing each other about language and many other topics. Being a Brit with his very dry wit, he could always rise to the bait of commentary about the English language (versus "American") or other similar topics.

Simon was a gentleman and just a great guy in so many ways. I never knew his children but knew from his comments and posts that he was quite proud of them. He will be missed - and my thoughts and condolences are certainly with his family right now.

For those in the Ottawa region, or able to get there (and I am not able to do so), the obituary says a memorial service will be held tomorrow, April 17, 2014, at 2:30pm. An online guestbook is available for those who wish to leave messages for his family.

R.I.P., Simon. Thank you for all that you did.

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What devices support the Opus audio codec? What softphones? hardphones? call servers? Obviously given that Opus is the "mandatory to implement" audio codec for WebRTC, it will be in many web browsers... but what other I was asked this question by a colleague recently and when I couldn't easily find a list on the Opus codec web site, I turned to the VUC community inside of Google+ and posted there. The great folks there naturally were a huge help, and quickly came up with this list:

• Web browsers supporting WebRTC:
  • Google Chrome
  • Mozilla Firefox
• Softphones:
  • Blink
  • Counterpath Bria
  • Jitsi
  • Linphone
  • Mumble
  • (Maybe Skype? They talked about it.)
• "Hard" IP phones:
  • AudioCodes 400HD series
• Mobile applications:
  • Acrobits (iOS)
  • Counterpath Bria (iOS)
  • csipsimple (Android)
• Switches / Call Servers / IP-PBXs:
  • FreeSWITCH

What other devices or software supports the Opus codec? (Or what other lists are out there listing devices supporting the Opus codec?) Please do let me know either by comments here or on social media.

Thanks!

P.S. If you don't understand WHY the Opus codec matters so much, please read my earlier post on this topic.

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Talk about disruption... the telecom part of the media world is buzzing with news of Facebook's acquisition of WhatsApp. Techmeme is currently showing MANY posts on the topic and the day is just getting started.

The key point here is that WhatsApp is a prime example of what is often called an "Over-The-Top" or "OTT" application. It uses the data channel on a mobile phone to provide services. Here's another key point from the Facebook news release:

• Messaging volume approaching the entire global telecom SMS volume.

The traditional telecom companies ("telcos") have already seen their voice revenue seriously eroded by Skype and so many of the other OTT voice applications (such as Viber, which was just acquired) and they've been watching SMS traffic and revenue plateau and decline.

WhatsApp was already one of the major players in the mobile messaging space... indeed I have friends in Europe who tell me they can't remember the last time they sent an actual SMS message because they use WhatsApp for all their messaging. Their usage, too, is not just about the "free" cost of WhatsApp messages - it's also about the richer messaging experience they can get over WhatsApp versus plain SMS. They can send photos, display an online status, engage in group chats and much more that was just either difficult or expensive to do with SMS. And... they can send messages to anyone using the app regardless of where they are in the world. They don't have to worry about fees to send SMS messages internationally.

The user experience is so very simple and easy.

Plus, WhatsApp (and other OTT messaging apps) solves the directory issue by just using your mobile phone number as the identifier within their system. With a quick approval of access to your contact list you can immediately start sending messages to any other WhatsApp users. You don't have to try to get anyone's number... it's all stored in the big giant (and constantly growing) WhatsApp user directory.

And now... instead of WhatsApp being a venture-backed startup out there building its service, it is now backed by Facebook, at this point one of the more powerful corporate entities on the global stage today.

Note, too, that Facebook has also been an OTT messaging player for some time with their "Facebook Messenger" application, which even introduced voice calling at one point in the US. In a post today, Mark Zuckerberg writes about how the two apps will co-exist for different communities of friends/contacts (see also the WhatsApp blog post). Zuckerberg also writes of how WhatsApp is, in his mind, on its way to connecting a billion people.

And that is really what should concern the telcos - one of the largest OTT messaging apps is now owned by the largest global social network.

A Larger Danger

There is, though, a broader concern, not just for the telcos but for all of us. All of these OTT messaging apps... whether they are WhatsApp, Line, Facebook Messenger, Apple's iMessage, Google+ Hangouts, Skype ... or any other... are creating SILOS of users.

They are proprietary "walled gardens" of messaging.

You can ONLY send messages to people who have the app installed on their mobile device.

Say what you will about SMS, but the reality is that you can send a message to pretty much anyone with a mobile phone, anywhere on the planet. No apps to download... it's just a "feature" of having a mobile phone.

WhatsApp requires the app. And specifically the app from Whatsapp and not anyone else's application. WhatsApp does NOT have an open API that anyone can use. In fact, WhatsApp's legal counsel was recently sending DMCA takedown notices to crack down on projects interacting with Whatsapp (presumably in the run-up to this acquisition). WhatsApp - and now Facebook - are in total control of the user experience and interaction for mobile messaging on the service.

Is this REALLY what we want for the future of mobile messaging?

Way back in 2007, I wrote about how "e-mail" was returning into walled gardens and while today's players are different than the diagram I had then, the situation is similar.

This is not the open Internet.

And that should concern us all.

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What are you doing tomorrow, Friday, December 6, 2013, at 12noon US Eastern (1700 UTC)? Would you like to join in to what should be an excellent conversation about the future of broadband networks, IP communications, telecom, etc.? If so, make plans to join the VoIP Users Conference (VUC) call happening live at 12 noon where the guest will be the ever-interesting Martin Geddes. The topic will be "Rethinking broadband and voice: Network Science and Hypervoice" and should prompt some vigorous discussion!

I've known Martin for many years now and have been a great fan of his analysis and writing ever since back in the days of his "Telepocalypse" blog. He's truly a great thinker in the space and is also quite an enjoyable and fun speaker to listen to. We know each other well from the early days of VoIP blogging as well as the conference circuit, and I regularly read his email newsletter and other great content he puts out. He's very active on Twitter as well.

Having said all that, I do have some fundamental disagreements with some of what he is advocating these days. I wrote about some of this disagreement last year and he and I had a good conversation both in the comments to that post and in some private exchanges.

Now, I very much agree with much of what he calls "Hypervoice" and where he sees voice going. Where we disagree is about the broadband component. This is the part that Randy outlines in the VUC page as:

He will outline some (controversial) answers that suggest we’re heading down a dead end and should consider a different technical and commercial approach.

It should be a fun conversation and I'm very much looking forward to the group discussion with Martin!

You can join the fun, too! If you want to just simply watch and listen, you can:

• view the event on the Google+ Hangout on Air Event page or on http://live.vuc.me (it will be both video and audio).
• listen to the audio stream only at Listen to MP3 stream at http://vuc.me/mp3

If you want to join in to the actual discussion, you can call in via:

• Skype audio: +990009369991484768
• SIP:[email protected]
• PSTN (phone) international numbers: http://vuc.me/voxbone

Regardless of whether you are just listening or planning to participate, it's always a good idea to join the #vuc IRC channel on Freednode.net. More info and a web interface to IRC can be found on the VUC site.

If you can't join in live, the session will be recorded in both audio and video form. You'll be able to find the archive on the VUC page and on the Google+ event page.

Please do join us! It should be a great conversation!

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TheNextWeb reported yesterday that Telefonica is shutting down the Jajah VoIP service that they acquired back in 2009 for a reported $207 million. While certainly disappointing for the users and presumably for some staff, it's not entirely unexpected. In the early pre-acquistion days, Jajah was doing some very cool things (ex. powering Yahoo!Voice, although that service has since faded) and was quite interesting to watch. Back when Alec Saunders was doing his daily "Squawk Box" podcast, we interviewed Jajah co-founder Roman Scharf on April 29, 2008 (you can still listen to the episode).

However, ever since the Telefonica acquisition you didn't hear a whole lot about them... although they did come out with an Android app in 2011 for calling Facebook contacts.

Telefonica isn't saying anything yet publicly about why they are shutting down Jajah. Pretty much the entire Jajah website points to a single "shut down" page and the blog now only has an entry about the shutdown. Matt Marshall over on VentureBeat speculates that Jajah simply didn't have any substantial revenue after voice traffic has been so commoditized - and that's as good a suggestion as any.

So... goodbye to Jajah... best wishes to all the customers and (presumably) staff.

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When updating my iPhone this week, I was extremely pleased to see the message in the attached screenshot that Linphone now supports the Opus audio codec. Somewhat strangely, I don't see any mention of this Opus support (or even the 2.1 release for iOS) on the Linphone news page or even on the Linphone features page, but the mention of a "Linphone Web" release does also mention Opus, so I'll assume this is real.

I've written before about why the Opus code is so incredibly important if we want to truly deliver a richer and better communications experience than we've had with the traditional PSTN and so it is great to see this support coming in to Linphone. Linphone is certainly not the first SIP softphone to support Opus - there are a number of others out there, including Jitsi and Counterpath's Bria (and X-Lite) - but it's definitely great to see another softphone added to the mix. Hopefully we'll also see this Opus support move to the desktop versions of Linphone (for Windows, OS X and Linux) as well.

Congrats to the Linphone team on making this happen!

P.S. Linphone also supports IPv6, ensuring that it will continue to work on all future networks.

Related Posts

• Why The Opus Codec Matters - Even If You Don't Care About Audio (also here)
• Audio: TDYR #025 - Why The Opus Codec Matters

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I learned a hard lesson today that Google+ Hangouts On Air (HOA) are limited to 4 hours in length.... and to read the rest of the story, visit Disruptive Conversations...

(Good lesson that I shouldn't be posting articles at 1:00am! But leaving this post up here for a bit because there are now social media links out there pointing to this URL...)

It rather staggers my mind that it was two years ago today, on September 19, 2011, that I began work for the Internet Society (a.k.a. "ISOC"). Longtime readers and friends may remember my impassioned (and naturally long) post at the time, "Ch-changes - Taking A New Job At The Internet Society To Join The Fight For The Open Internet".

Two years later that passion has only grown stronger! The events of recent months with the massive Internet surveillance disclosures have only reinforced the need for organizations like the Internet Society to be out there doing what they can to preserve the open character of the Internet.

Whether it is the excellent work on leading Internet technologies - and support for the IETF... the incredible work of our public policy team ... or the great work going on to to expand access to the Internet in regions where there is limited connectivity... or the global work of our chapters helping at a local and regional level... or the programs to develop the next generation of Internet leaders... or the many, many other activities going on around the globe... it's been an absolute pleasure to be a staff member for the Internet Society and I look forward to many more years ahead!

For me, being involved with the creation of the Deploy360 Programme has been an amazing experience. Working on Deploy360 has enabled me to unite my writing and communication skills with my passion for and knowledge of technologies such as DNS, IPv6 and routing technologies - as well as my enjoyment of social media as a way of distributing content and engaging in conversations. Plus, I've had a chance to continue my work with WordPress and so many other social tools.

I've had the opportunity to work with an outstanding team ... and I've had a chance to meet some of the most amazing people all around the world. With Deploy360 our goal is to find out what challenges people are having with deploying IPv6, DNSSEC and routing technologies - and then find or create the appropriate resources to answer those challenges and help people overcome those issues. To do that, you have to go out and meet people... to talk to to them... to hear their questions and to ask them questions.

And so there is this exquisite irony that someone who works for the Internet Society winds up spending an insane amount of time on airplanes traveling to places all around the world to meet with people responsible for deploying these open Internet protocols. And sometimes it's admittedly a bit absurd... such as the trip to Singapore where I spent more time in airplanes traveling there and back then I did actually on the ground in Singapore! (I was only there about 36 hours.)

But it's the people that make the travel worth it! I've met incredible people doing great work to keep the Internet open in so many different places... and in places that quite honestly I would never have even imagined that I'd wind up going! Sure, I've traveled through North America and Europe, but I mean... Russia? (see also: my thoughts on walking in Red Square) China? South Africa? India? Colombia? Poland? Singapore? Brazil? It's been a privilege to be in those places and meet these people doing such great work.

I hope that in some small way I've been able to help them with their efforts. I've certainly learned from what they are doing... and that's been fed directly back into what we're doing within the Deploy360 Programme.

Two years into the role there is still a great amount of work to do... we have content roadmaps that outline MANY documents we want to either find or create... we have new topics that we want to add to the site... we have code we want to help get created... we have new best current operational practices to help document... we have other groups we want to engage with...

The two years seem to have flown by rather quickly - it's been rather a whirlwind ... but I'm looking forward to where the next two years go. Lots to do - and the challenges ahead for the open nature of the Internet are only going to get tougher and more demanding!

I know I haven't been writing here on DisruptiveTelephony as much as I used to... but I'm hoping to do a bit more in the time ahead. Much of my writing these days is on the Deploy360 blog and sometimes over on CircleID. You can always track my writing via my danyork.me site... or of course follow me on any of the social networks.

Thanks for all the support and help that so many of you have given me over these past two years - and I look forward to working with so many more of you in the months and years ahead!

P.S. One great way you can help is to join the Internet Society to stay up-to-date on current issues affecting the Internet - membership is free for individuals. You can also subscribe to my infrequent email newsletter where I hit many of these topics.

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Audio commentary related to this post can be found at:

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