[VoiceOps] "...but it works with Packet8"

[Alex Balashov]

On 08/23/2010 11:09 AM, Hiers, David wrote:

> Packet8 is clearly big enough to write their own SIP stack for
> both the client and core devices.  Don't know if they did, but
> I would not dismiss the possibility.

This is extremely unlikely, unless they inherited one via licensing 
from an acquisition.

Developing a SIP stack is a surprisingly capital-intensive endeavour, 
at least, when it comes to working out interop issues and bugs, as 
well as natural race conditions arising from a literal interpretation 
of RFC 3261.  All that testing and R&D is hard to afford.  That's why 
the only good SIP stacks have been around for at least ten years 
(though, from this it does not follow that just because a SIP stack 
has been around for ten years means it's any good).

Generally, the only ones with the resources to do it are major 
softswitch and/or SBC vendors, not service providers, because of the 
level of engineering and software development core competency 
required.  For service providers development may be important, but is 
ultimately rather ancillary to their principal business functions, 
especially at the protocol stack level.  Successful ITSPs like Packet8 
are ultimately sales/marketing/fulfillment-dominated machines, first 
and foremost, above all else.

Even then, much commercial gear today licenses the Radvision or 
Aricent stack.  I know Cisco has their own, as does Siemens and did 
CopperCom, and certainly, Alcatel-Lucent.  But there aren't that many 
of them, ultimately;  well-worn commercially viable SIP stacks are a 
small family.  Venturing outside of that family is where a lot of 
problems are found.

-- 
Alex Balashov - Principal
Evariste Systems LLC
1170 Peachtree Street
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