While many books describe the theory behind Voice over IP, only Practical VoIP Using VOCAL describes how such a phone system was actually built, and how you too can acquire the source code, install it onto a system, connect phones, and make calls.
VOCAL (the Vovida Open Communication Application Library) is an open source software project that provides call control, routing, media, policy, billing information and provisioning on a system that can range from a single box in a lab with a few test phones to a large, multi-host carrier grade network supporting hundreds of thousands of users. VOCAL is freely available from the Cisco Systems-sponsored Vovida.org community web site (www.vovida.org).
A Silicon Valley start-up called Vovida Networks, Inc (think of VOice, VIdeo, DAta) created VOCAL and invested over one hundred man years into its development. Since Cisco acquired Vovida in 2000, individuals representing every significant telecom company and service provider in the world have downloaded the source code. Today, more and more people are successfully building VOCAL into professional solutions, while contributing fixes and new functionality back to Vovida.org.
Because VOCAL is open source, you can look "under the hood" to the base code and protocol stack levels and discover not only how the system works, but also how common problems are being worked out in the development environment. We're hoping that you will be inspired to take this system to another level by implementing a feature or functionality that no one has thought of before.
Written by a team from Vovida Networks, Practical VoIP Using VOCAL includes the following topics
:
If you're interested in VoIP, this is the only book available that focuses on the real issues facing programmers and administrators who need to work with these technologies.
This guide shows programmers and administrators how to implement, program and administer VOIP systems using open source tools instead of more expensive options.
PrefaceChapter 1: VOCAL: Say, What? Chapter 2: Setting Up a Phone System at HomeChapter 3: Setting Up an Internal Trial SystemChapter 4: Provisioning UsersChapter 5: Configuring System Parameters and Dial PlansChapter 6: Provisioning ServersChapter 7: Session Initiation Protocol and Related ProtocolsChapter 8: Vovida SIP StackChapter 9: Base CodeChapter 10: VOCAL User AgentChapter 11: SIP Proxy: Marshal ServerChapter 12: Redirect ServerChapter 13: CPL Feature ServerChapter 14: Unified Voice Mail ServerChapter 15: MGCP TranslatorChapter 16: H.323 TranslatorChapter 17: System MonitoringChapter 18: Quality of Service and BillingChapter 19: ProvisioningVOCAL SIP UA Configuration FileTesting ToolsColophon
Anonymous
Posted March 1, 2005
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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Overview
While many books describe the theory behind Voice over IP, only Practical VoIP Using VOCAL describes how such a phone system was actually built, and how you too can acquire the source code, install it onto a system, connect phones, and make calls.
VOCAL (the Vovida Open Communication Application Library) is an open source software project that provides call control, routing, media, policy, billing information and provisioning on a system that can range from a single box in a lab...