Books for/about - VoIP

Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Authors: Jim Van Meggelen Jared Smith Leif Madsen

ISBN: 0596009623
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Summary: The title of the book is slightly understated
I bought this book because I thought that having a small PBX-type system for my home/office would allow me to route faxes to my fax machine, provide voicemail to replace the limited answering machine, and auto attendant menus to route calls to 1 of 3 extensions that I would be able to configure. I saw a solution that would divide business and personal calls and also filter and perhaps stop once and for all those evil telemarketing calls.

In reading the book and doing a little research I learned that my goals were modest indeed for what the system is capable of!

While the idea is to provide a business-level PBX with inexpensive hardware, the same thing can be used as a killer phone appliance for the home or small office.

Even though I am about a quarter of the way into it, I can tell you that this book is one of the best written technical guides I have ever read. It's easy to read and chock-full of practical information that considers several types of users in it's presentation.

Don't expect to be a beginner and have an easy time of understanding how to install and configure an Asterisk PBX. Even for those with extensive computer experience there are a number of new terms, concepts, and technologies to learn. But if you have the interest and time to spend, you will be rewarded in taking full control of your phone system and be able to expand that control to home automation and other functions limited only by your imagination and programming skill.

I think Asterisk is going to turn into a household name at some point and skills learned today could turn into a career tomorrow.

Summary: Excellent Introduction to Asterisk
Asterisk IS the future of telephony. I have been wanting to dive into the Asterisk world for over a year now, but never had the time until now. I have very limited telephony experience, and what little I know is from working on an old AT&T definity system, in a fairly passive role i.e. watching someone else do all the really cool stuff. Unfortunately, peons like myself weren't allowed to muck around on the PBX's. Lucky for me, Asterisk doesn't care who you are, you are encouraged to muck, and this book is an excellent place to begin.

Asterisk, The Future of Telephony, walks you through a brief history of telephony, and the technologies that have defined the industry since the dawn of time (more or less). The book is entirely self contained, and assumes very little previous telephony knowledge on the part of the reader. Aside from the AGI section, where some programming experience is taken for granted, anyone with basic linux admin skills should be able to read this book, and walk away with a strong Asterisk foundation to build upon.

The book is divided into 11 chapters which cover the full gamut of Asterisk's basic functionality. From preparing, installing, configuring and using an Asterisk system to writing customized scripts, connecting to VoIP gateways, and blocking telemarketers. If you need to do get something done, Asterisk is the PBX for you.

When working with open source tools, you get used to the phrase "that's really cool", and while working with Asterisk, that phrase comes up even more than usual. Every time I got through a chapter, I would have dozens of new ideas that I wanted to implement on my server and play with. I must have bored some of my colleagues to death with my "This is awesome..." speeches, but I don't think I was overstating matters at all. Asterisk really is awesome, and if the PBX big boys aren't worried, they probably should be.

If you are looking to setup a bunch of extensions in your house, leverage the power of VoIP, add capacity to your legacy PBX at the office, or do something entirely new, then this book is an excellent starting place and resource. My inner geek is very happy with the book, and I can easily recommend it to anyone w/even a passing interest in Asterisk.

Summary: HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!
Are you new to Asterisk? If you are, then this book is for you! Authors Jim Van Meggelen, Jared Smith and Leif Madsen, have written an outstanding book that is for those who are familiar with basic Linux administration, networking, and other IT disciplines.

Van Meggelen, Smith and Madsen, begin by providing some background about how Asterisk is going to change the world of telecom. Then, they cover some of the engineering considerations you should have in mind when designing a telecommunications system. The authors continue by covering the obtaining, compiling and installation of Asterisk. In addition, they describe the initial configuration of Asterisk. The authors also introduce the heart of Asterisk--the dialplan. Then, the authors discuss some of the more important technologies in use in the Public Telephone Network. Next, they discuss Voice over IP. Next, the authors introduce one of the more amazing components, the Asterisk Gateway Interface. Then, they briefly cover the features and functions of Asterisk. Finally, they predict a future where open source telephony completely transforms and industry desperately in need of a revolution.

This excellent book is the realization of a desire from the authors to deliver documentation which introduces the most fundamental elements of Asterisk--the things someone new to Asterisk needs to know. In other words, this book was written for, and by, the Asterisk community alone.

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Switching to VoIP

Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Authors: Theodore Wallingford

ISBN: 0596008686
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Summary: Good choice for investigating VoIP for your organization...
It seems like Voice over Internet Protocol, aka VoIP, is starting to become much more mainstream. Not only are businesses switching over, but now you can set up your home phone access to use VoIP (aka "broadband") technology. Ted Wallingford has done a nice job in explaining the business side of the possibilities in the book Switching to VoIP - A Solutions Manual for Network Professionals.

Contents: Voice and Data - Two Separate Worlds?; Voice over Data - Many Conversations, One Network; Linux as a PBX; Circuit-Switched Telephony; Enterprise Telephone Applications; Replacing the Voice Circuit with VoIP; Replacing Call Signaling with VoIP; VoIP Readiness; Quality of Service; Security and Monitoring; Troubleshooting Tools; PSTN Trunks; Network Infrastructure for VoIP; Traditional Apps on the Converged Network; What Can Go Wrong?; VoIP Vendors and Services; Asterisk Reference; SIP Methods and Responses; AGI Commands; Asterisk Manager Socket API Syntax; Glossary; Index

I think the biggest thing to keep in mind when approaching this book is the target audience. While there are a few books out there on "internet telephones" that talk to the consumer, this isn't one of them. The tag line of "for Network Professionals" is the key here. While you don't have to be a network guru to read this book, some level of familiarity with network and telephony concepts would help. Someone either working with the communication systems in a company or heading up a communications department would be a perfect match here. You'd probably even do alright if you just have an interest in the subject, as Wellingford does a good job taking what can be complex material and making it understandable. An admirable task in itself...

What makes this book stand out from other books I'd expect to see is that it doesn't just dwell on jargon and theory. There are a number of projects included in the book so you can get your hands dirty actually working with the technology. Add to that the fact that the author uses an open source PBX system called Asterisk for the exercises. So now you have no reason in terms of cost for not diving right in.

Although I'm not necessarily the target audience for this book, I'd have no problem recommending it to someone looking for material that covers this subject. The book is very well written, and after finishing it you should have a very firm grasp of the essentials. You might even know enough to start yourself on your next career path... :)

Summary: Great book
This book provides a comprehensive look at not only VoIP, but all related legacy telephony systems it may interact with or replace. A wonderful resource for anyone considering a VoIP deployment either at the office or at home. The technical detail and background the author provides in his examples and background information is incredibly helpful. I definately recommend..

Summary: Pretty Good
As the telcom manager for a rather large enterprise (45,000 users) I try to keep up on the various books on VoIP and this one is pretty good. It is designed towards someone who is knowledgeable about voice and data but not necessarily someone how is an expert in either subject. It also does a very good job of not focusing on any one type of technology but covers H.323, SIP and Cisco amongst many others and gives you a good sense of each flavor that is available. I would recommend it for anyone looking to deploy VoIP.

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	SIP Beyond VoIP: The Next Step in the IP Communications Revolution Publisher: VON Publishing LLC Authors: Henry Sinnreich Alan B. Johnston Robert J. Sparks Vinton G. Cerf
ISBN: 0974813001 List Price: $35.00 Amazon Price: $35.00 Usually ships in 2 to 3 weeks Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: This book is a must" for everybody who has to do with SIP The book is a must" for everybody working in the Internet and telecommunication industry and having to do with SIP, from engineers interested in SIP functional, architectural and protocol aspects to product managers looking for new ideas to build innovative communication products. For SIP engineers, the book is an excellent, very good structured guide through the SIP protocol and its, meanwhile, quite numerous extensions, from basic SIP to SIP-based Presence, Location, Conferencing and Identity services and to the currently emerging peer-to-peer SIP technology. For each topic, the book contains the functional architecture description, the most important protocol aspects and examples. For readers interested to get more technical details, the book also refers, for each topic, to the relevant IETF SIP documents, which are free available at www.ietf.org. For product managers, the book is a very good overview on the technical possibilities offered by the SIP technology to build new, innovative services, to offer secure VoIP services or to reduce the costs of the SIP infrastructure using an adequate architecture. Summary: review of SIP beyond of VoIP This book presents the most complete and up-to-date overview of the SIP technology I am aware of. The SIP technology has become quite complex over the years and the book has shown it is possible to cover the complexity in 300+ pages. What I particularly credit the book for is it shows the whole SIP roadmap beginning with current status (basics of the sip protocol, sip services, presence, etc.) both deployment-wise and standardization-wise, work-in-progress in the industry (xcon conferencing,xcap provisioning), and ending with 'hot topics' such as peer-2-peer, interconnection of 'sip islands' and multi-network mobility. Even very tricky aspects such as NAT traversal have been addressed in this single book. The presented concepts are well provided with underlying details such as traces of SIP messages, call-flows and snapshots of devices in the market. Despite I consider my own SIP knowledge level over-average, I like to refer to the book for SIP aspects I don't deal with every day. With that, this book is a must-have for bookshelf of anyone who is seriously looking at SIP. Summary: Excellent overview of SIP and its applications beyond VoIP This book provides an excellent knowledge bridge between technicalities of the IETF specifications and the real world experiences. The knowledge shared in 15 chapters is both an excellent introduction for new-comers and a refreshing experience for those who are looking for better understanding what SIP is and how is shaping the communications landscape. I am lucky to have followed the authors at several shows and congresses where their presentations opened the sessions every time with a fresh update from IETF activities and commercial solutions. You can find in this book up to date information, which is seldom found in similar titles. Chapter 5 about Presence, which provides more than a buddy list and offline/online indication, is a good example of explaining something, which everyone heard about, but few understand. The shift from centralized and server based infrastructure to pure Peer-to-Peer systems where intelligence is delegated to the end-point based on the end-to-end principle of the Internet is a view of the future to come, businesses will definitely find the advices exposed in this Chapter 14 as a new niche of developments where competition is still scarce. Chapter 13 about NAT traversal summarizes accurately the problems and the solutions for crossing Network Address Translators. Chapter 10 about how to use SIP by people with disabilities is a proof that SIP can fulfill requirements that PSTN was never able to. Interaction between SIP systems and PSTN is well described and explained Chapter 7 where ENUM is given an accurate X-ray The book balances well excerpts of technical message tracing, configuration samples with clear diagrams, examples of applications and real-life devices. A must read for software developers, solution implementers as well as business decision makers. Summary:

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Newton's Telecom Dictionary, 21st Edition: Covering Telecommunications, Networking, Information Technology, The Internet, Fiber Optics, RFID, Wireless, and VoIP

Publisher: CMP Books
Authors: Harry Newton

ISBN: 1578203155
List Price: $34.95
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Summary: Published Every Year Just to Attempt to Keep Up.
When Judge Green ordered the split up of AT&T so many years ago he couldn't have imagined what he was really unleashing on an unsuspecting world. The whole concept of the Internet, packet switching, Voice Over Internet Protocol and more. Dozens of companies rising and falling depending on the tides of the marketplace.

He also couldn't have imagined the impact on the language. I don't know how many TLA's (Three Letter Acronyms) ; There's BEP's (Back End Processor), and BER's (Bit Error Rate). To be sure, computers seem to always use TLA's, Telcom's seem also to like to use four letters: CORE (Council of REgistors), DVAC (Dedicated Voltage AC).

Whatever they are saying and writing, it's defined here. This is the standard dictionary of the field, published every year in an attempt to keep up with the growing jargon.

Summary: Gets Better with Age (& Editions!)
I've been buying Netwon's Telecom Dictionary since it first came out many years ago. This reference text is the gold standard for professionals in the Voice and Data industries. If you work in IT or telephony, I srongly recommend you keep an up to date copy close at hand.

Whenever I can, I try to give copies of Newton's Telecom Dictionary away to students in my TrainingCity.com classes. All of them tell me it's the best part of attending my class!

In reviewing the latest edition, I found numerous new definitions and all sorts of outstanding updates to older items. Once again, you simply cannot go wrong buying this book!

Summary: use a search engine instead of this book?
This is one of the standard reference texts in telecom. A massive explanation of virtually any term you are likely to encounter in the field. It is a dictionary, not an encyclopedia, so it does not go into any term in any depth.

The book has a piquant attraction. Open a page at random and glance through it. Often there are hilarious words and explanations of these. Revealing a droll wit.

But aside from that, these days you might prefer to use a search engine for look up quick meanings.

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VoIP Hacks: Tips & Tools for Internet Telephony (Hacks)

Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Authors: Ted Wallingford

ISBN: 0596101333
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Summary: VOIP : for the serious home user or enterprise deployment
Voice over IP, as with most emerging technologies, in the process of shaking up the world, in this case Public Switched Telephone Network and Plain Old Telephony Service. The author starts of the book off at the most basic entry point for most consumers into the world of VoIP, which is background about the main commerical carriers such as Vonage. The introductary chapters continue to build on the most elementary approach, giving the reader advice on modifying the soft phone[s] that the respective carriers will allow or provide to the consumers, such as alternating ring tones. It isn't long before Ted is explaining how to compeletly re-wire the house over to a pure VoIP infastructure using the existing wiring in your home as well as an, or the ATA provided by the carrier. While this is undoubtly over the casual readers head and possibly comfort level it is good see that this option is explored and explained for those that might not be aware of this solution.

Of course, other VoIP solutions are explored. Skype, is mentioned and basic features are explored, although the detail provided on Skype is not as detailed as those of other solutions, which maybe due to the coverage for Skype under the Skype Hacks book. However, the coverage for building your own VoIP via Asterisk is quite detailed and in-depth. Options that explored for this approach, are call forwarding, hold music, voice mail applications and distinctive ring as well as basic advice on setting up and compiling the application. The process appears to be able to easy to implement, but alas was not tried due to this reviewers use of Skype for his VoIP needs.

Also in the closing chapters of the book, issues of improving QoS are addressed as is the legacy signalling protocol that H.323 is since the adoption of SIP. Since QoS is vital to ensuring that VoIP traffic receives the bandwidth that it needs Ted gives us some basic commands to find out if there is jitter [dropped datagrams] and some ways to fix this issue. However, it should be noted that this chapter, as with most of the later half of the book is more in line for larger scale operations that use Linux/Unix and building their own office VoIP solutions.

To summarize, VoIP hacks does offer something for everyone, although the hacks provided in the latter chapters are geared to the enterprise level deployment of VoIP. That's not to say that the information is not relevant or even eye opening, just the average home user will find little to apply this to.

Summary: VERY VERY HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!
Do you love to tinker and optimize? If you do, then this book is for you! Author Ted Wallingford, has done an outstanding job of writing a book that contains only a small subset of VoIP knowledge; but, enough to serve as an introduction to the world of VoIP and teach you how to use it to save money, be more productive, or just impress your friends.

Wallingford, begins by introducing you to some Internet based VoIP phone service providers who can help you replace your traditional phone line with a cost-saving, feature-rich VoIP line. Then, the author shows you how to customize and maximize productivity-enhancing telephony applications. He also introduces you to Skype and Skyping. Next, the author shows you how to install, configure, and hack Asterisk, an open source PBX. Then, he continues by showing you how to add hardware hacks to your VoIP setup--and how to customize them. The author also explains how you can monitor VoIP and troubleshoot it using traditional admin tools. Finally, the author shows you how to use hard-core voice.

In this most excellent practical guide, the author provides dozens of hands-on projects for building a VoIP network. More importantly, he shows you how to tweak and customize hardware and software to get the job done.

Summary: Both fun and informative
I enjoyed reading this book. It's got great information on the different VoIP services and how they work. And it has a bunch of fun recipes that you can use to play with the services. I really enjoyed the one about altering your voice. As well as the information on how to record iChat and Skype. That is really handy.

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	VoIP Telephony with Asterisk Book & Installation CD Publisher: Signate Authors: Paul Mahler
ISBN: 0975999214 List Price: $89.90 Amazon Price: $89.90 Usually ships in 24 hours Buy this book from amazon.com or from amazon.co.uk	Avg Cusomer Rating: 5 Reviews: Summary: Great Guide Very good starting guide to asterisk. It will help enter you into the world of open source VOIP. Summary:

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Taking Charge of Your VoIP Project

Publisher: Cisco Press
Authors: John Q. Walker Jeffrey T. Hicks

ISBN: 1587200929
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Summary: Excellent IT Planning Guide
This book offers good strategies for implementing VoIP. It covers the feasability studies required and pre and post evaluation of the network. Technical details is covered well but the most important aspects such as QoS, SLA's are taken care of which is an important area when dealing with VoIP.

Summary: VoIP From a Business Perspective
John Walker and Jeffrey Hicks's "Taking Charge of Your VoIP Project" (ISBN: 1587200929, Cisco Press) is an installment in Cisco's Network Business Series line of books and covers the topic of voice over IP (VoIP) from a business strategy perspective. Although the book does cover some technical aspects of VoIP, its main purpose is to guide the reader in understanding the steps from beginning to end on how to develop a business case all the way to deploying a successful and secure VoIP deployment. The book covers eight major areas:

* VoIP Basics
* Building a Business Case for VoIP
* Planning for VoIP
* Do It Yourself or Outsource?
* Quality of Service & Tuning
* Ongoing VoIP Management
* Establishing VoIP SLAs
* VoIP Security

This book's primary audience is meant to be at the managerial and above levels, although it does have value for senior technical staff, albeit from a different angle. For the management level, the book's value is in how it covers enough technical detail to make the reader aware of the complexities of VoIP, yet at the same time it presents both a business rationalization and realistic implementation steps so as not to scare the reader away (from the technology). For the senior technical staff or technical manager, the details of the technology will seem rudimentary, but the business framework may be less familiar territory, and therefore more valuable. For the technical audience, it addresses the often asked question of, "Where's the business need for VoIP?"

The eight categories can really be summed up into three major headings: VoIP Technology Summary, Business Justification, and Deployment Considerations. The "VoIP Basics" or technology summary provides the necessary background information on the PSTN and legacy PBX's in order to present the context for understanding how VoIP is a change in voice technology. This section is brief, and Walker and Hicks end with a general overview of data technology and how you converge old voice technology into it, discussing signaling, transport protocols, codecs, and the hardware necessary to make everything work. In terms of the business case for VoIP, the authors present three major cost savings opportunities: toll cost savings, simple network savings, and productivity savings. These areas are commonly talked about and should not be a surprise to the reader; the value here is that the book enables the reader to talk intelligently about the cost savings areas to a business audience. From here, Walker and Hicks cover how to project the ROI, how to make sure you have the data to back up your projections, and what associated costs should be considered before starting the project (e.g., is it cheaper to outsource?). Lastly, the authors spend time discussing both the pre and post implementation requirements and implications of running VoIP, spending less time on the technical details and more time on the big picture of implementing such a technology: Considering the quality requirements (i.e., QoS), integrating VoIP into a network management structure, establishing SLAs with the customer, and securing the technology.

Overall, the book provides a good, but broad treatment of how to present a case for VoIP and then deploy it. The irony of the book is that the readers who can best utilize the information will probably be the ones that find the book a little boring. For example, experienced managers will take away the unique points of implementing VoIP and recognize how it can fit in a realistic way for their particular environment. On the flip side, the knowledgeable network technician will similarly be able to see the nuances of VoIP that the book presents and understand the implications for the existing network. To both audiences, the pre-existing experience and knowledge may cause them to find the book too basic, although the lessons learned will most likely be valuable to them. To the less experienced readers (technical or managerial), the book is a great starting point and will most likely engage them more, but without additional references or resources (e.g., basic project management skills, understanding business budgeting cycles, etc.), the information learned may be just enough to make them dangerous.

"Taking Charge of Your VoIP Project" is a great resource for its intended audience of decision makers and project managers. It is not necessarily meant for the technical person doing the implementing, although the information is beneficial as it ties the technical to the practical.

Summary: Don't Start Without It!
I recently read the book titled "Taking Charge Of Your VoIP Project" by John Q. Walker and Jeffrey T. Hicks. ISBN: 1587200929.
The title is a great reference for understanding VoIP technology and helps identify the many aspects that one must consider for a successful deployment of Voice over IP. Reading this book ahead of time will empower the reader with the lingo, technology and solutions to be effective when leading a team.
The book starts out by giving the reader an understanding of the basic technology concepts surrounding traditional voice networks, or Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN) and then goes right into the basic technologies that allow Voice over IP (Data) to be a viable alternative to the traditional phone networks.
Chapter 2, Building a Business Case for VoIP, gives the reader good information to ponder over and helps identify purpose for building a case for a VoIP solution.
The next chapter, "Planning for VoIP" is one of the larger chapters and for good reason. After all, anyone in business knows that planning determines whether the project will go smoothly with little surprise or whether it's a disaster. In this chapter you'll learn about reliability, call quality assessment, and over all VoIP readiness assessment, among other things.
Another great chapter is Chapter 5, "Quality of Service and Tuning". Probably one of the biggest challenges that an organization will face. QoS is challenging due to the complexity of a true end-to-end QoS solution in an already complex data network. Accomplishing QoS requires in-depth knowledge of the existing data network. Furthermore, the communication to others on the team of what it's going to take to get the network "up to snuff" to support VoIP will be a task in and of it self. It makes ATM technology look quite attractive. The chapter has quite a bit of detail; however the authors don't drop the reader over the deep end of the technologies.
I would recommend this book to those that are anticipating implementing Voice over IP in their network, those that are in the process of piloting Voice over IP or even those that are in the midst of a VoIP implementation would benefit from this title.
The book is best suited for Project Managers, management, telecommunication and Data networking personnel. Really and truly, most anyone would benefit from reading this title. It covers such a broad range of information that having a well educated project team is going to ensure that the project goes smoothly and all things are considered. This book does an excellent job of presenting all of the issues that personnel involved in a Voice over IP project should be aware of to ensure success. It gives the reader a great appreciation for the complexities and helps a great deal with ironing out a good sound strategy.
This book has several figures, tables and diagrams. Like the old saying goes, "A picture is worth a thousand words". This statement holds true in the title. Like I always say, pictures are good.
The book covers everything you'd think about and everything you wouldn't think about.
Coming from the data side of a VoIP solution, I thought I had enough figured out to make a VoIP project a success. This titled made me think about issues that I would have otherwise over looked. Especially issues relating to traditional telecommunications.
Don't start you project without this book. It may end up costing you more than this book in mistakes if you don't.

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Practical VoIP Using VOCAL

Publisher: O'Reilly Media
Authors: Luan Dang Cullen Jennings David G Kelly

ISBN: 0596000782
List Price: $44.95
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Summary: Source those cheap Net phone-calls
Source those cheap Net phone-calls

Reviewed by: Frederick Noronha

Practical VoIP Using
VOCAL Luan Dang,
Cullen Jennings
& David Kelly
Publisher: O' Reilly, 2002
Price: $44.95

From the cover, an angry-looking snipefish stares out at you. Across its five-hundred odd pages, a sea of technical data greets you. Practical VoIP Using VOCAL is a book for those wanting to build their own VoIP system. Voice over Internet Protocol software improvements (with better bandwidth and processing speed) have made Internet telephony a decent-enough option to consider.

This book describes how the system is actually built. You can acquire the source code, install it onto a system, connect phones and make calls.

Co-author Dang is co-founder of Vovida Networks. VOCAL (the Vovida Open Communication Library) is an open-source software project. It provides call control, routing, media, policy, billing information and provisioning.

Your system can scale from a single box to multihost carrier grade. VOCAL is freely available from the Cisco-sponsored Vovida.org site. VOCAL is open-source. You can see not just how the system works, but also how common problems are being worked out in the development environment.

This book promises to "show how to implement, program and administer VoIP systems using open-source tools." As co-author Jennings argues: "Along with other VoIP applications, VOCAL is actively inverting the way telephony is deployed by allowing an Internet-style anarchy that was never possible in the traditional PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network). It has been a fun area to work in."

True. For us in India, since Fool's Day 2002, the area of Internet telephony has become a reality. Who doesn't want inexpensive telephone calls over the Internet, limiting long-distance charges to the nominal cost of
e-mail?

But the price of this US-published book (almost US$45), for us here, is still an issue. Hopefully the Indian edition at more affordable rates won't be too long in coming. All in all, a good book for those interested in this field. And, this is a field more should definitely get interested, if we're to enable the world's second-largest populated country to have more affordable access to communicating globally.

Summary: a credible open source implementation
VoIP usage is surging amongst many users worldwide. A pack of startups has been established; each trying to dominate this field. And ATT and other large phone companies are also starting to jump in. With all this, the average VoIP user expects it to be virtually indistinguishable from an traditional phone experience.

Well, that is where this book and you come into the scene. To make that simple user experience requires a huge amount of technical work. The book gives you a detailed appreciation of what that involves. This VOCAL is "only" one VoIP implementation. But it may be attractive, because it is open source. The book's authors were instrumental in designing VOCAL and offer the book as the definitive text on it. They give a lot of functionality, with the added promise that it is very scalable.

I cannot discern from the book how VOCAL will fare against well funded proprietary VoIP solutions. But at least VOCAL seems to give them serious opposition, as a credible and free alternative.

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