What makes one VoIP API different from another?
Having spent a significant amount of my working life immersed in IP Telephony and Voice over IP, I eventually found myself becoming frustrated by the lack of infrastructure at the edge of the network, moreover the issues that surrounded our inability to ensure QOS (Quality of Service) on a VoIP phone call.
Best-efforts VoIP is not quite what it is cracked up to be, creating a decent experience for the residential, SOHO or even Enterprise users has become somewhat of an art form.
In the meantime the mobile world was innovating at a rapid pace, bringing the cellular telephony on par it would seem with the traditional office or home phone in terms of volumes of usage. I am not sure about the rest of you but my mobile phone seems to have become affixed directly to the side of my head, surgery may be required.
For me, the perfect VoIP API would take advantage of all the good things that VoIP brings but not rely on the edge of an IP network to deliver a good experience. At the same time it would also need to take advantage of the growing mobile user base and not be device-specific, meaning proprietary software is not required to be installed on the device.
The answer for me pointed away from IP endpoint software and towards the core of the IP network leveraging existing mobile and legacy wired networks. I think this is what gets me so excited about the Lypp VoIP API. It does not require IP connectivity to any endpoint and certainly does leverage our tendency as humans to move around.
The one thing that really left me scratching my head about the various VoIP SDKs, APIs, and Developer Toolkits out there were how terrible they were written. With the technology we have in front of us now we should be capable of building flexible, very extensible APIs that leverage ActiveResource and REST to provide a Web 2.0 approach to integrating and building VoIP applications and features.
Another pet peeve of mine was the overly difficult manner in which APIs were made to integrate with the VoIP switches. In most cases you needed a degree in IP networking and equal experience in SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) in order to pull that off.
Lypp’s API is bundled with wholesale termination provided by the nation’s largest VoIP network partners including Level 3, XO and Global Crossing, making deployment of said telephony features a snap.
So that’s my rant. I don’t mean for this to sound like a sales pitch but I can’t help it! I really am excited bout this VoIP API and what it means for the growth of IP Communications.
I would love to get your feedback on the Lypp API and the Lypp.com service <- built on the API. Email me or leave a comment.
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