Using Open Standards With VoIP Applications

When shopping around for VoIP clients, it's very important to ensure that you don't fall into the common pitfall of opting for a service provider who uses closed standards for communication. Though it might seem appealing at the time, such standards can severely restrict your access to other VoIP networks and applications that use a different standard. Since this isn't something that you will be told when you make inquiries, you'll have to make sure you remember to ask. But what do open standards mean?

It's quite simple. Open standards allow diverse clients to communicate with each other without having to be built, owned or affiliated with any particular service provider. For example, if you use Skype, you won't be able to use it to interact with any other VoIP system that doesn't support the closed proprietary Skype protocol. And support for the Skype protocol can't be built in because the standards aren't open.

The same problem occurs with numerous chat clients such as Yahoo!'s VoIP services, Apple's "PureVoice" and AOL's systems. All of these systems are blind to each other since they essentially don't speak the same language. Google is a notable exception where its Gtalk uses the open XMPP standard for communication.

So when you choose a VoIP provider, you need to decide if you're happy using open standards such as SIP, or closed proprietary protocols. As mentioned above, it may not seem like a big deal immediately, but you can be assured that open standards are the future. This is because they're inherently extensible and third party developers can easily make use of them to develop new and innovative applications.

Choosing a provider who uses a proprietary protocol on the other hand will inevitably doom you to lock in - meaning that your flexibility is severely compromised. You'll have to think ten times before deciding to switch to another provider and you will also be locked out of all the other applications that are developed using open protocols. Not a very scenario to be in.

As of now, SIP is one of the leading protocols for VoIP. There are also plans to integrate SIP with XMPP with Google giving such designs a solid push. If you choose Skype however, you can never make use of the full capabilities of VoIP and will miss out on pure VoIP calls with those who are using a different standard.

Choose wisely.

Bhagwad is a specialist in Virtual VoIP services. He also specializes in Hosted VoIP for small businesses.