Paul E. Jones

I spend much of my time working in the IP Multimedia Communications (▲IPMC) area, including ▲VoIP, ▲videoconferencing, ▲instant messaging, and presence software engineering based on ITU Recommendation ▲H.325, ITU Recommendation ▲H.323, IETF ▲SIP, ▲XMPP, and other packet-based communication protocols. I am also a co-founder of Packetizer, which is dedicated to sharing information and helping product developers, service providers, and end-users with topics related to multimedia communication technology.

I have been actively involved in work related to IPMC (a.k.a., "▲IP telephony" or "▲VoIP" or "unified communications") since 1996 and I really enjoy it. As part of my work, I have attended meetings or participated in discussions with groups such as the ITU SG16, IMTC, ETSI TIPHON, H.323 Forum, SIP Forum, and the IETF. I served as editor of Recommendation H.323 and currently serve as Rapporteur of Question 2 (▲H.323) and Question 12 (▲H.325) in ITU-T SG16. I also served as editor several other ITU Recommendation, made numerous contributions to the work in the ITU, and authored or co-authored several Internet drafts and RFCs published in the IETF. It keeps me very busy, but it has been a great experience.

IPMC is a very promising area, allowing a convergence of ▲PSTN, mobile systems, and packet-based communication, with a clear and definite objective of replacing the lecagy PSTN systems with ▲IP-based technologies. IPMC is opening the door for the broader area of multimedia communications options that were simply impossible on the PSTN. Prior to joining doing a work on ▲VoIP, I did work in the multipoint data conferencing area, focusing primarily on the ITU-T standard ▲T.120. It is clear to me that we still have a lot of work to do, because today's VoIP systems and data conferencing systems are too rigid, challenging to use, limit one's mobility, not well integrated, and are generally not delivered in such as way as to be a natural part of our lives. Any next-generation system must address these issues.

Most recently, I started research on ▲H.325, which is destined to be the next generation multimedia system. This is still extremely early in development and is not likely to be ready for a few years, but that depends on industry interest. In any case, most experts in the real-time communication industry recognize that there is a need for something revolutionary. H.323 and SIP are not it: they merely took us from TDM to IP. Now it is time to take full advantage of the IP network. H.325 will enable, not only voice and video, but also file sharing, application sharing, "screen sharing", video gaming, etc. Today, these technologies operate as isolated functions, but H.325 will tie them all together quite naturally. Life will be a whole lot simpler with H.325.

I have been fortunate to have had the opportunity to speak at a number of industry events, including ones sponsored by the IMTC, UpperSide, VON, FCC, TDI, H.323 Forum, ViDe, and the ITU. I have had articles published or been interviewed for articles in numerous publications, including Internet Telephony, CPMNet Asia, ComputerWorld China, ComputerWorld Hong Kong, Telecom Asia, Voice and Data, and Light Reading.

Outside of multimedia communications, I enjoy taking walks through cities in various countries I visit. So far, I've had the opportunity to visit Australia, Canada, Chile, China, Belgium, Brazil, England, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Norway, Singapore, South Korea, and Switzerland. Of course, since almost all of these countries were visited on business, I don't often get to do too much touring. Even so, I've met a world full of great people and have seen a lot of interesting places. The world is so full of interesting people and cultures, but I have also observed that people are very similar no matter where you go in the world. I am constantly amazed at how similar we all are in our hopes, dreams, and ideals. Perhaps one day the artificial curtain that seems to divide us will disappear.