Since our first (garage-made) SIP Web Phones were Inferno based, our research experiments and interests in 1999-2000 were heavily influenced by a client centric service architecture for VOIP. In our labs all IP phone devices were considered peers (clients as well as servers), a shannon phone was a web server, a SIP device, an analog device, and a provider of new services -- every shannon SIP Web Phone was considered a potential Class 6 switch. Since the shannon original IS2630 phones were analog phone devices we preserved their analog line support. Shannon phones were prime test bed for offering single POTS line to multi IP "lines" gateway services.
A mesh of peer shannon devices offers a new service architecture with the following properties:
shannon phones respond to html query with phone information sheets including remote access to phone internal data: calendar of events, call list, phone directory, primary user, logged-in user, electronic business card, click to call service url, etc. shannon phones are elements of a large connected mesh of computing devices. shannon phones can hold a large number of call appearance and enabled rapid switching between calls. shannon phones access web portal telephony enabled services via the Charon Inferno browser. shannon phones can send and receive email message including click to call urls. shannon audio devices are accessible remotely via Inferno Namespace. shannon phones can export audio (device) services such as joining two audio streams, performing dsp based audio conversion, etc. shannon phones can collaborate in a communication mesh to offer combined services. shannon phones support "By-reason:" in SIP, this enables a shannon SIP phone to be a 3rd Party Call Control agent between two other SIP phones: a distributed service implementation of Click to Call on the mesh (Grid). shannon phones can provide a SIP call control bridge gateway between IP and a POTS line each. text-to-speech and speech-to-text services are available services on the mesh. text can be displayed in various fonts and style on color touch screen providing conference notes and messaging via SIP notify and/or email, instant messaging etc.
Today the Inferno OS and the Inferno Grid are available from Vitanuova. The Inferno Data Grid and Inferno Computational Grid are being quietly deployed, under royalty free license agreements, without the backing of an Open Source community at this time.
With or without the Inferno OS in the device, the result of these early SIP and NOS device experiments (i.e. a large number of devices on a Grid) provides for a rich source of imagination and innovative opportunities for developing new VOIP and communication services and products. In the Inferno phone Grid architecture, the peer devices are the meeting place for new features while the Grid is the rendez-vous for innovative services made from distributed features combinations. Electronic information is captured and processed as closely as possibile to the source and made available to the rest of the Grid via Inferno Namespace, SIP, IM, HTTP, and SMTP orchestration.
Last update: 2004/10/20
Bruce and Olivier