A Taxonomy of Internet Telephony Applications
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clark_keynote.pdf
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113.06 KB
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Adobe PDF
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Author(s)
Clark, David D
Date Issued
July 23, 2002
Abstract
There are a broad range of objectives and opportunities that can be lumped under the heading of
Internet Telephony, or ITel. This paper identifies a number of criteria that can be used to
separate these different ITel applications into classes, including the degree of interoperation with
the existing telephone system, and the extent to which the existing Internet must be augmented to
support them. Using this framework, the paper concludes that different ITel applications have
very different motivations, and have very different implications for industry structure, economics
and regulation. The immediate opportunities for ITel involve cost reductions relative to current
telephone pricing. The long term trajectory for ITel is to become a new mode of computermediated
human communication, which will have profound consequences for the telephone
industry. This long-term form of ITel will not necessarily grow directly from the products that
are being deployed now, but will come from a number of intermediate developments that can be
anticipated over the next several years.
Subjects
ITel
Internet telephony
regulation
economics
industry structure
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