The telephone, invented by Bell in 1876, has been in use for 150 years. How much longer will the method of dialing a number to reach someone continue?
In Japan, due to the widespread adoption of mobile phones, traditional PSTN phones have been declining in households. However, businesses are still required to install phones, effectively making it mandatory due to administrative demands from governments.
While mobile phones operate on a network where each individual has their own number, businesses need someone from their team to respond to calls, which makes VoIP more suitable when the requirements are carefully considered. VoIP itself has been around for about 30 years, yet it hasn’t fully become a commodity.
Amidst the hellish summer heat in Tokyo, last week, I decided to switch to VoIP.
As is typical with network middleware, nothing seems to function until the very last stage before completion, and then it suddenly starts working smoothly. This lack of clear guidance during setup is likely one of the barriers to the widespread adoption of VoIP.
SIP and Asterisk
Currently, when considering the future of telephone operations, the most sustainable technology seems to be
SIP family. It’s even used in mobile VoLTE, making it the primary target when the PSTN is eventually replaced by IP networks.
Since SIP message analysis is an inevitable part of the setup process, it’s crucial to have a good understanding of the SIP protocol beforehand.
While purely speculative, I believe that when SIP will get obsolete, it would be due to the realization and widespread adoption of quantum networks.
If data could be directly linked between two geographically distant points, the need for packet-switched networks could disappear. Without such a profound shift, there doesn’t seem to be much benefit in fundamentally rewriting SIP. Its interim status as the best solution helps ensure that it won’t easily become outdated.
Asterisk is an open-source PBX implementation that uses SIP. Given its long history of updates, it’s well-crafted.
While VoIP setup is inherently difficult, making Asterisk installation very challenging, it’s arguably the most sustainable VoIP implementation globally, so it seems reasonable to base decisions on it.
I’ve compiled
a separate article on technical configurations of Asterisk. However, Asterisk isn’t alone in facing the issue of dwindling user communities, making useful information hard to come by. As usual, when you need to change your network configuration after running it for a while, the lack of technical information can turn it into a lost technology.
While I’d be glad if this article helps spark a wealth of information, it’s more likely that I’ll end up referring to my own article. I feel like I’m always leaving a dying message for my future self.
SIP trunking services are declining in popularity
Businesses typically expect their phone systems to have a telephone number that can be dialed from external PSTN-compatible devices.
In Japan, telephone numbers are usually sold bundled with communication lines. However, for corporate use, the focus should be on a service model called SIP trunking, which connects to the internal VoIP network.
Recently, many SIP trunking services that provide phone numbers have been discontinued. It’s unusual that no explanations have been offered by any service providers.
Notably, new subscriptions have been halted as of 2023. The few providers that continue offering services have reinforced identity verification processes before resuming them.
Prior to the decline of SIP trunking, Japan saw a rise in specific fraud schemes, often involving Japanese nationals operating from places like the Philippines and Thailand, starting around 2017. Some of these cases escalated into violent crimes, including robbery and murder.
Given that phones were a primary means of communication for these crimes, it seems likely that government regulations on the sale of communication methods, including mobile phones and IP phones, were enforced. Providers that couldn’t afford to implement the required identity verification processes may have opted to end their services entirely.
We need to further promote commoditization
It is difficult to predict future trends.
The fact that “VoIP & SIP trunking configuration is suitable for enterprise telephone requirements” is not self-evident, leading both service providers and users to underestimate its importance. This is likely the main reason for its slow adoption.
A realistic approach would be to focus on further commoditizing Asterisk.
Since Asterisk itself is open source, commoditization here refers to reducing the technical barriers to its implementation. While there are distributions available that assist with setup, the lack of a breakthrough suggests that more work is needed.
There seems to be insufficient effort in addressing the tremendous complexity of combining various devices with SIP trunking services.
For example, once a SIP trunking service is chosen, the appropriate Asterisk configuration should be straightforward. If SIP trunking providers offered sample configurations for Asterisk, some of these challenges could be alleviated.
Currently, it’s common for providers not even to supply SIP message specifications, forcing users to go through extensive trial and error.
PSTN networks will likely be replaced by IP networks in the near future. While the infrastructure is becoming more suitable for VoIP, human skills have yet to catch up.
