The i3 Forum: Past, Present, and Future

Founded in 2007 and made public in 2008, the i3 Forum has grown from eight members to more than 37 carriers worldwide. Currently carrying 80% of the world’s international voice traffic in more than 100 countries, the i3 Forum is focused on making the transition to an all-IP world easier. Aside from a significant increase in membership, the i3 Forum has seen tremendous results in the past couple of years.

In addition to making pragmatic business, technology and operational recommendations for the benefit of the industry, the i3 Forum has delivered service definitions and SLA guidelines. The i3 Forum has developed interconnection models (private and public, including over the Internet) as well as recommendations on Signaling (SIP and SIP-I), Codecs, Security and QoS. In 2009, the i3 Forum completed early work with GSMA on Voice over IPX.

So what’s to come?

This year, the i3 Forum will focus more on voice. In particular, the i3 Forum will make more recommendations on Wideband and Low Bitrate Codecs. The i3 Forum is working with the SIP Forum on Fax over IP and it is expected to be delivered next September.

The i3 Forum is also developing a new suite of Training Programs on International IP Interconnection with Neotelis, a consultancy that assists telecommunications organizations worldwide.

The i3 Forum announced they will be hosting a two day workshop June 15-16 in Warsaw, Poland. As part of a series of initiatives, the i3 Forum will leverage its extensive industry knowledge to host the Technical Workshop in an effort to further address key issues currently impacting carriers.

In just two years, we’ve seen concrete progress to an all-IP future and the momentum is set to continue!

About the author:

Christian Michaud
Senior Vice President, Product & Business Strategy
Christian Michaud is the Senior Vice-President of Marketing and Business Development in the Global Voice Solutions Business Unit at Tata Communications. Mr. Michaud is responsible for developing the Business Unit overall strategy as well as leading the product management and business development. Mr. Michaud has over twenty years of experience in international telecommunications, including twelve years with Teleglobe, which was acquired by VSNL in February 2006. Mr. Michaud holds graduate and undergraduate degrees in economics from the Université de Montréal