Re: [Sip] Eating our own Dog Food...could the IAB and IESG use SIPfor conference calls

[Harald Tveit Alvestrand <harald@alvestrand.no>]

Thanks for the idea!
injecting a slight dash of cold water....

- the actual cost of "Teleconferences and Long Distance charges" in 2002 
were USD 82.210 (unaudited) (vs 54.400 for 2001). A significant fraction of 
that, but far from all, is the IESG teleconferences.
- we've already switched teleconference providers once to reduce costs, 
going from call-everyone to most-people-call-in.
- the costliest part of the IESG teleconferences has been the callout: 
international participants (last year, France, the Netherlands, Norway and 
Sweden when they are at home, hotels literally anywhere in the world when 
they are travelling) are called rather than calling in. You don't want to 
discuss with your boss why you had to make a 2 1/2 hour international call 
at hotel room rates if you can avoid it......
- it's absolutely essential that one be able to participate in the IESG 
telecon from just about anything that one can dial from - we've had 
participants on cellphones from trains, in airport lounges, hotel rooms and 
other places. So SIP-only won't work for some time yet.
- even at work, several of us have problems with firewalls; about half the 
IESG uses Jabber during sessions - the reason many of the others don't is 
that they can't get Jabber through their corporate firewalls. So "pure 
Internet SIP" won't work for all of us any time soon.

So I think this is a good idea, PROVIDED THAT:

- The SIP teleconference bridge provider is able to provide either 
800-number access or callout services to normal telephones in most corners 
of the world
- The voice quality, operator quality and call stability is competitive 
(yes, we've got the "there's an echo on this conference - can you figure 
out who is echoing and fix it" request down to a matter of routine)

A "normal" teleconference provider that *also* allows SIP dialin over the 
Internet would probably be perfect. If you have one - send email to me - 
PRIVATELY - and I will forward to the relevant parties at the secretariat.

              Harald

--On mandag, mars 24, 2003 19:04:17 -0500 Richard Shockey 
<richard@shockey.us> wrote:

> Like many of us I was moved my Harald's appeal for suggestions for
> helping to cut down costs in the IETF.
>
> I certainly endorse the idea of considering Canada or Mexico as possible
> sites for future IETF meetings, but I suspect that the weekly
> teleconferece calls that the IAB and IESG have represent a significant
> line item for the Secretariat.
>
> In case anyone has not heard, SIP is quite capable of handling this type
> of task and there are a variety of commercial as well as open source
> Client User Agents as well as commercial products and services that could
> help reduce this cost.
>
> I'm sure the SIP working group could help the Secretariat identify
> products and services that could make this essential function more
> productive and operate at less cost.

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