OpenSIPS Summit: Open Source Telecom Software Status, Trends, and the Road Ahead
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The document summarizes two surveys conducted in 2019 and 2020 on open source telecom software. The 2019 survey had 95 responses and focused on projects like Asterisk, FreeSWITCH, Kamailio, and OpenSIPS. The 2020 survey had 87 responses and provided more geographic and use case details. Key findings included OpenSIPS's popularity for infrastructure applications and the need for improved documentation across projects. The author advocates for more globalization of open source telecom communities and adoption of web best practices like documentation.
OpenSIPS Summit: Open Source Telecom Software Status, Trends, and the Road Ahead
- 1. Open Source Telecom Software Status, Trends, and the Road Ahead
- 2. What am I going to talk about? © Alan Quayle, 2020 ● 2 Surveys ● And some strategy
- 3. © Alan Quayle, 2020 Who Am I? Independent chartered engineer who virtually wanders the world helping people build businesses, and pointing out all the BS in the telecoms / communications industry.
- 4. © Alan Quayle, 2020 Open Source Comms Projects
- 5. • Its analogous to the web server • 80% of web servers are open source (Apache and Nginx) • Telecom app server enables a client to use simple APIs / protocols to harness telecom services across the PSTN and the Internet © Alan Quayle, 2020 Telecom Application Server Client Web Server Data and services on the internet Client Telecom App Server Telecom protocols, networks, & services on the PSTN / internet
- 6. Telcos Internet Carrier Aggregation: Voice, SMS/MMS, RCS, DIDs, SIMs, Data, Mobile ID, Charging SBC Firewall TAS: Voice, SMS/MMS, RCS, IoT, mobile money SIP AS WebRTC AS/GW Value Added Services: Bots, fax, speech rec, device mngmnt, media server / gateway, call recording, media forking, 2FA, NLU, PTT, omnichannel, mobile payments. SIP VAS. WebRTC VaS. Enterprise Enablers / Services: Twilio Flex, CCaaS, UCaaS, UC&C, workflow / task scheduler, engagement/CRM, authentication / account security, trust scores, mobile marketing API Management (Security, SLA, Policy, Discovery, Lifecycle, Identity Management, Orchestration – REST (likely to evolve to gRPC)) Common Functions Management Console GDPR Compliance Provisioning Usage/Billing Account Management Testing How it all fits together in CXTech / Programmable Comms
- 7. Open Source Telecom Software Ecosystem ”Do you see how IBM, Google, Amazon, Red Hat etc. all support enterprise and web OSS?” Telecoms / Communications $2T+ Ecosystem Telcos Vendors
- 8. © Alan Quayle, 2020 This is just my perspective
- 9. Two Surveys © Alan Quayle, 2020 20202019 http://alanquayle.com/2019/12/deeper-dive- into-the-open-source-telecom-projects/ • Broad review of most of the open source projects, and common deployment issues • Filling in gaps on geography, contributions, deeper dive into hosting / redundancy, plus missing projects (drachtio, ASTPP, RTP Engine, etc.) http://alanquayle.com/2020/07/open-source- 2020-survey/
- 10. Which OSPs do you use? Responses % Asterisk 71 75% FreeSWITCH 39 41% Kamailio 41 43% OpenSIPS 51 54% Restcomm/Mobicents 3 3% © Alan Quayle, 2020 2019 Recapitulation (95 Responses)
- 11. OpenSIPS: What is the main application(s) / market need(s)? (PBX, Conferencing, Contact Center, Mobile App Comms, CPaaS, UCaaS, CCaaS, PBX, video CC, what is the scale of the implementation (100, 1000, 10k, 100k, 1M+)) Application (45 responses) Responses % PBX 12 27% Conferencing 4 9% Contact Center 7 16% Mobile App Comms 5 11% CPaaS 15 33% UCaaS 14 31% SBC 5 11% ITSP 3 7% CCaaS 4 9% SIP Proxy / Router 12 27% Video CC 5 11% Scale (43 responses) Responses % 100 5 12% 1000 8 19% 10k 14 33% 100k 22 51% 1M+ 7 16% © Alan Quayle, 2019
- 12. OpenSIPS: What to you consider the strengths and weaknesses of the OSP? Strengths (39 Responses) Responses % Flexibility / Versatility (a programmable SIP Server with 150 modules) 10 26% Capacity (thousands of CPS, millions of CC) 11 28% Scalability 7 18% Easy to use and setup 3 8% Stability 9 23% Community 7 18% Performance 10 26% Supportive Dev team 12 31% Easy to customize 8 21% Low resource requirments 6 15% Weaknesses (28 Responses) Responses % Complexity and learning curve 7 25% Difficult to configure and debug 5 18% Limited features 2 7% Inability to handle media 4 14% Lack of B2B function 3 11% Documentation 8 29% Small (but growing) user base 8 29% © Alan Quayle, 2019
- 13. OpenSIPS: How do you view the future of the OSP? (e.g. will remain dominant platform in CPaaS, or will face increased competition from projects X in UCaaS, or uncertainties around business model mean we are examining other OSPs but have no plans to change). Future (17 responses) Responses % Remain dominant competition to Kamailio 8 47% Will become the dominant VoIP infrastructure project 9 53% © Alan Quayle, 2019 A comment made on OpenSIPS future that I think sets out the space both OpenSIPS and Kamailio are addressing is: “OpenSIPS is an ideal tool for VoIP infrastructure / backbones. UCaaS will cannibalize the market for the "last-leg to user" solutions, but when comes to infrastructure (SBCs, VPBX, Trunking, Carriers), the market will be unchanged.”
- 14. Comparison: Does the developer community make itself accessible for participation (closed – OK – Open (with lots of fast help (hours) and dev events))? Asterisk FreeSWITCH Kamailio OpenSIPS © Alan Quayle, 2019
- 15. Comparison: How easy is it to engage with the community on features/issues that are important to you? (difficult (no/slow response) – OK (responses can take days) – good (rapid response, within hours, day max)) Asterisk FreeSWITCH Kamailio OpenSIPS © Alan Quayle, 2019
- 16. Comparison: Do you find it easy to hire knowledgeable consultants, or otherwise access operational support for the platform from outside your immediate organization (easy – OK - hard) Asterisk FreeSWITCH Kamailio OpenSIPS © Alan Quayle, 2019
- 17. A Few Take-Aways ● For configuration management / scripting, the answer is Ansible ○ Should each project share popular scripts to aid adoption and setup? ● Native Cloud (AWS, Google, etc.) is not a popular choice ● Geography ○ Some in Europe were surprised at the size of the Asterisk responses, it would be interesting to map how the projects are adopted around the world ● There’s still much we can do together as a global community to accelerate open source adoption © Alan Quayle, 2019
- 18. 2020 Survey – Hot of the Press!! (87 Responses) © Alan Quayle, 2020 India is growing in importance. FOKUS is important to Germany+. English speaking countries do appear to over- index in the survey.
- 19. © Alan Quayle, 2020 India: Speed of response Australia and NZ: Speed of response Russia: Language barriers Central and South America: Language barriers Europe: Finding knowledgeable consultants North America: Finding knowledgeable consultants Distributed team: Speed of response Middle East: Speed of response
- 20. © Alan Quayle, 2020 No significant geographic dependency.
- 21. © Alan Quayle, 2020 Documentation is critical, also it must be up to date with the current release. It needs a dedicated expert with translation support (Google translate is not good enough).
- 22. © Alan Quayle, 2020 India average score: 4 Middle East: 5 ANZ: 4 Europe: 1-5, with average 3 Americas: 1-2
- 23. © Alan Quayle, 2020
- 24. © Alan Quayle, 2020
- 25. © Alan Quayle, 2020 A cautious approach to Serverless
- 26. • Security • Repeat 2019 broader survey • More details on existing platforms • More telco core stuff, role of OSS in IMS, 5G SA, etc. • Ask about API-related features being used inside of Asterisk, for example, do you use AMI? ARI? AGI? FastAGI? • Track serverless adoption • Can we get web developers perspectives on the OS projects? • Make it an annual survey and track progress of projects over time • Please let me know what else? © Alan Quayle, 2020 Topics we should address in 2021
- 27. What am I going to talk about? © Alan Quayle, 2020 ● 2 Surveys ● And some strategy
- 28. © Alan Quayle, 2020 Open Source Projects are not Cults! Leader is always right Oppose critical thinking Ostracize members who leave
- 29. © Alan Quayle, 2020 Open Source Projects are BOTH
- 30. • Training • Development / Design • VoIP Service / Applications (cloud / premise / platform) • WebRTC Applications • Softswitch services • Contact center applications • Asterisk • Maintenance of VoIP networks and services • Consulting • General OSS / RTC Development / Deployment • Predictive dialing, inbound acd, pbx • Audit Services © Alan Quayle, 2020 2020 Survey: Do you provide consulting for other companies on how to deploy / manage / scale open source projects? • Security • OSS for Call Centers (ViciDial & OpenSIPS) • Network consulting • RTC design / experience • Premise architecture, hardware, networking and configuration • Managed / Hosted VoIP networks / services • Installation, Customization, High availability and Scalable setups for Open Source projects. • Telco Consulting • IMS on Kubernetes (based on Kamailio) • OpenStack, Kubernetes, IAC • RTC OSS strategy
- 31. Who are your customers for the Products/Services? • Traditional telcos, e.g. Deutsche Telekom • Business model needs to change, OSS can help, but remain trapped by legacy. • Infrastructure vendors, e.g. Cisco • Used OS in the past, in some cases OS projects discover this when telcos ask them for support. • Vendor business model need to change, OSS can help, but they remain trapped by legacy. • (BABS providers) CPaaS, UCaaS, CCaaS providers, e.g. RingCentral • Mature segment, deep expertise, tend to fork once achieve objectives to de-risk • Regional UC, CC providers, e.g. GoContact • Maturing, looking for solutions given BABS competition Opportunistic Most accounts are settled Worth a look
- 32. Who are your customers for the Products/Services? • Enterprises, e.g. French Government • CPaaS, UCaaS, CCaaS are providing solutions at much better pricing than legacy providers. • Next generation telcos, MVNOs, alt-access providers, e.g. Simwood • Expanding into more telecom services and scaling business, they can support OS projects and as scale you win more services • Integrators / VARs / MSPs, e.g. Scansource • Web-centric, OSS can help them win against BABS providers, moving away from legacy vendors Expensive to reach. Opportunistic. Worth a look. Worth a look.
- 33. © Alan Quayle, 2020 Marketing Documentation, examples, training, code samples, done in a web-centric way
- 34. • Open source telecom / communications software is a global community of communities • Open source telecom software is almost everywhere – 80% of CXTech companies rely on open source telecom software • $2T telecoms market is being democratized, thanks to open source • Telecom OS is HARD, the legacy ecosystem is not supportive • OpenSIPS is well positioned in the evolving market • Telecom OS projects need to globalize (India, rest of Asia, Middle East, Russia) and adopt web best practices (documentation (expert), examples, code samples, training) • A cricket analogy: We’ve just completed the first innings in Telecom OSS (20 years), there are at last 3 more (60 years) to go! © Alan Quayle, 2020 Key Points
- 35. © Alan Quayle, 2020 Please get involved, mash-up you project / service with the global sponsors