The SCTE Benelux Lecture Meeting, 2004.

The Society's Benelux Section Lecture Meeting, Spring 2004 The Society's Benelux section held its Spring 2004 Lecture Meeting on 26th May. This was the second SCTE Benelux lecture presentation organised by Mr Rien Baan, our Benelux Secretary, but the fourth in our series of European Lecture Meetings. On this occasion, we were pleased to be guests of Telenet.

The meeting was held at the Holiday Inn, Brussels Airport	Voice over IP. The meeting addressed the subject of Voice-over-IP. There were a total of 32 attendees who enjoyed a full session of technical lectures with the emphasis on practical implementation. Rien Baan summarises the days papers. Slides of the three main papers are now available for you to download and keep. See the links at the end of the summaries and right click then select 'save as' to download the PowerPoint slideshow. These are large files and you should expect a long download time if you have a dialup connection.

Introducing VoIP The first presenation was given by Sonja de Ganck of Telenet. Sonja described in detail all necessary preparations for the introduction of VoIP technology. Telenet is preparing to launch this service with the expectation that all aspects linked to the introduction will be carried out by the Telenet organisation. In order to find out what the market was offering various RFP's were issued. Sonja explained the methodology and processes involved in the selection of technology and venders. The integration of Telenet's existing telephony system and management tools was an important factor and the move to soft-switch technology was outlined in the presentation.		The delegates listening to the papers.

	VoIP at Multikabel. Ritzo Holtman of Multikabel described how the the introduction of a VoIP service in Multikabel was proceeding by giving examples of their response to customer queries. The mechanism of provisioning VoIP clients and automatic log-on features was described and the process of central based system monitoring was reviewed. Special focus was given to customer approach, similar to the way the Dutch KPN was doing. A financial model was presented including operational aspects of a VoIP system, overview of investments and setting of monthly fees for the service. The resulting Profit and Loss picture for the years to come was presented, showing a positive cash flow after the first year of introduction. Right click here to download the presentation slides.

VoIP as a Add On Service. An 'add-on' approach to VoIP was described by Ytsen Kooistra of Rits Telecom. Operating as an individual added-value company not as a cable operator, Rits Telecom is offering CPE to provide a VoIP service to any cable company who is interested offering a VoIP service. Ytsen explained the concept and business model of adding special boxes to cable modem or xDSL connections. The VoIP traffic is handled by Rits Telecom who offer Gateway and Management/Billing etc. to the operators involved. The concept that such a VoIP box was truly mobile, i.e. could be taken all over the world and connected any broadband Internet connection and offering the same VoIP service for no extra charge, struck many of our guests as a very novel approach. Experiences of existing customers were described. Right click here to download the presentation slides.		Ysten Kooistra of Rits Telecom

	VoIP and Standards. The day ended with a presentation by Kurt Haelvoet of Telenet. Kurt explained the various links to international standards when applying VoIP. The Packet cable architecture was reviewed and compared to the conventional telephony switching mechanism. The role of the Euro Cable Certification Board, in analogy to CableLabs was explained, including the link to Euro Packet cable and ETSI. The involvement of tComLabs in Gent was mentioned as the selected entity to carry out testing and certification for the ECB. Right click here to download the presentation slides.

Another Stimulating Event. The day was voted a great success by all those attending and our thanks go again to Telenet for hosting the event.


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