ABSTRACT
The rapid proliferation and acceptance of the Internet and at its core, Internet Protocol (IP) technology, has had a profound impact on the way people communicate. Its openness has led to a plethora of innovative (and some not so innovative) new applications. However, with this new model came limitations and poor performance when it came to real-time applications due to the best-effort nature of the Internet and endpoint incompatibility issues. Contrast this with the telecommunications industry, which has evolved over a period of more than one hundred years with a focus on reliability and performance. However, the telecom networks also have a history of being a closed network with new applications coming out at a snail’s pace when compared to the Internet model.
