Analysis of Internet Telephony and the H.323 Multimedia Standard

Internet Telephony is an emerging and promising technology which enables the transport of voice over data networks. If it is going to be successful, standardization will be critical. The purpose of this study is to assess the suitability of the H.323 standard for establishing and performing real time voice conversations over IP networks. The goals of the study were to 1 examine the current status of Internet Telephony, 2 conduct research on the current Internet Telephony software solutions in terms of quality, performance, interoperability and H.323 compliance, 3 analyze and evaluate the H.323 standard, 4 compare H.323 with Session Initiation Protocol, and 5 provide recommendations for further improvements of H.323. The study shows the complexity of H.323 and highlights the areas where more considerations are required. Part of the study includes the testing of 10 Internet Telephony programs. The tests show that H.323 compliance does not guarantee interoperability and voice quality. Also it is shown that the standard is not yet mature despite its popularity. However, it is assessed that Internet Telephony is a technology which will experience tremendous expansion during the forthcoming years. Based on the analysis and evaluation results, recommendations are provided in order for the H.323 to be more suitable for Internet Telephony.