A Slice of TADSummit Asia: Open Source Telecom Software

In this series of weblogs, A Slice of TADSummit, we review a few of the themes from TADSummit Asia. This slice focuses on open source telecom software.

Open source projects are a critical part of the web’s success. As programmable telecoms becomes democratized, open source projects are of increasing importance to the telecoms / communications industries. And like many web open source projects, with just general web and IT skills people can use open source telecom software at scale and with high availability.

Telcos have tended to shy away from open source telecom software, rather adopting retro-closed source solutions (e.g. IMS and RCS). But even there, open source has made its way in creating greater innovation and lower pricing, thanks to companies like ng-voice, who have presented at TADHack and TADSummit.

Most CPaaS / UCaaS / CCaaS providers use open source telecom software projects. Many of the tech-savvy providers have either forked a project, or are confident of being able to fork with no risk. A few of the bigger ones, like Twilio began on open source with Asterisk and FreeSWITCH, but have since built out their closed source platform.

This is not a winners takes all business, it’s a dynamic market, meeting a plethora of evolving needs. Where exceptionally smart technologist continue to create and share software that makes the world better.

I recommend you start with the open source telecom software landscape presentation to understand the breadth of projects out there.

Open Source Telecom Software Landscape

Next the WebRTC status review is a fun historical guide to the ongoing WebRTC project dominated by Google.

Status of WebRTC across Asia

Kamailio is an example of a project that gets thing right. It has the most engaged community across the projects surveyed.

Introduction to Kamailio by Fred Posner

OpenSIPS has a common history with Kamailio, and is another very well-managed project, evolving in an interesting direction.

OpenSIPS 3.1, on the Verge of Class 5 Enrichment by Bogdan-Andrei Iancu

A big thank you for Dave Horton for announcing Jambonz at TADSummit Asia. This has the potential to shake up the CPaaS industry.

CPAAS: Let the Great Unbundling Begin! By Dave Horton

I particularly like the Asterisk and Apidaze intros, they explain the projects well for newcomers to open source telecom software. Often the project communicate well with their community, the time has come to also educate the far broader web and IT focused engineers on the amazing potential of open source telecom software.

Introductions to Asterisk, Apidaze (VoIP Innovations) and FreePBX