Home :: Business Solutions: Research & Development

Advanced VoIP and Multi-media Services

Today there are a number of ways that people can communicate over the web; email, fax, IM, IVR, TTS/STT, VoIP, and Video. These are established and emerging technologies that use IP data networks to transfer text, speech and video data in "real-time". In recent years, they have been gaining tremendous popularity. The main reasons being that:

Communication over IP is much more cost effective than over a traditional system like the Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN).
More flexibility since new enriched applications can be developed and deployed relatively fast compared to traditional PSTN provisioning.

However, like any new technology, early deployment faces several challenges. For instance with VoIP some of the major concerns are Voice quality, and the complexity in configuration and management of the VoIP devices (such as VoIP PBX, IP phones etc.). Also, when these technologies are used simultaneously it is questionable whether they all work together properly in a common environment/platform without degrading performance and functionality.

Cistel plans to investigate and develop a framework which will be used to quickly develop advanced voice and multi-media application services over IP. The framework will include SIP based call control and Media Server (CCMS) software. The framework will allow rapid and cost-effective development of applications which utilize VoIP and other multi-media over IP. Examples of such application/services are call centres with automated call distriubution (ACD), automated health-care assistance, video on demand (VOD), etc.