The SIP Forum recently announced it’s continuing to do its part to ensure enterprise communications products fully interoperate with service provider networks. In fact, its new SIPconnect Certification Testing Program will be hosted by the University of New Hampshire Interoperability Laboratory (UNH-IOL) and is designed to help ensure adherence to the SIPconnect Technical Recommendation currently at Version 1.1.
In an interview with Marc Robins SIPNOC Program Chair and Robert Kinder of Cox Business who also serves as a director, they mentioned the SIPconnect 1.1 spec is about five years old and is currently included in many RFPs. The goal of this new initiative however, is to increase interoperability between IP-PBX providers and service providers.
The idea is to plug in the box to the carrier with less headaches, in less time, and see installation issues and challenges which could have lasted weeks, be reduced to mere hours.
What’s changed is the certifications were being done on the honor principal – where companies filled out forms based on real world results. Now with UNH, lab tests can be done over the Internet, from anywhere.