Skype is facing a perfect storm for mobile and web growth. Here’s why:

A boom in smartphones and the emergence of new HTML standards has created a “perfect storm” for a surge in VoIP applications, according to Skype. Presenting at PTC ’10, an annual international telecommunications event in Honolulu, Skype’s chief technology strategist Jonathan Rosenberg said smartphone advances would allow millions of users to bypass traditional mobile voice rates and instead move voice minutes onto VoIP platforms.

“We have the rise of the smartphone platforms that are capable of hosting and providing applications like Skype and rich communications, we’re seeing an increase in capacity for both Wi-Fi and today’s 3G and tomorrow’s 4G, and the final piece of it is the channel for delivery of these next generation applications to these devices – the rise of the app store … has created a huge appetite for distribution channels like Apple’s app store to bring application providers like us to bring new functionality to users.”

“To bring this together, we’re finally going to see the beginnings of mobile voice over IP. In fact, this is already beginning to happen. The iPhone application that Skype provides is one of the most popular applications of all time, downloaded over 6 million times by users of the iPhone and we think that’s just the beginning.”

But while Skype already has millions of users on its desktop VoIP service, Rosenberg said VoIP would soon be moving into web browsers as standards developed. “We’re really seeing some fascinating changes in the web, and in particular the line between the web and real time communications is fading.”

Using Facebook and Google Wave already integrating real-time communications services, Rosenberg said the web would soon “have a voice” of its own. “That’s all being enabled by current and next generation standards. We’re now seeing, through work in the W3C, incorporation of voice and video functionality immediately in the browser through the voice and video tags that are struggling but eventually going to get standardised into the browser.”

“We’re also seeing tremendous improvements in interactivity in web applications Ajax and Flash have enabled applications on the web that look almost the same as desktop applications. And when you put all his together, the line between real-time communications, desktop applications and web applications is simply going to be zero. And as a consequence, I’m certain that tomorrow the web will have a voice and real time communications will be as seamlessly part of the web experience as browsing,” he said.

Internet: also facing “perfect storm”

The global Internet infrastructure is facing a ‘perfect storm’ scenario that can potentially disrupt performance and operation, says a new report by Arbor Networks. While the company’s fifth annual Infrastructure Security Report focuses on the growing attacks on the Internet by botnets and other threats, it also highlights the fact that the Internet is now facing a “convergence of issues,” including the looming IPv4 exhaustion and the preparedness for migration to IPv6, DNS Security Extensions and to 4-byte ASNs.

Any one of these changes alone would constitute a significant architectural and operational challenge for network operators, the firm said. Considered together, they represent the greatest and potentially most disruptive set of circumstances in the history of the Internet, especially given its growth in importance to worldwide communications and commerce, the firm added.

“Earlier major architecture changes were implemented when the Internet was an experimental network with little or no relevance to most people,” said Jennifer Pigg, vice president, Enabling Technologies, Yankee Group. “Today, the majority of global business networks are entirely reliant on Internet availability, stability and integrity. With the introduction of DNSSEC, IPv4 exhaustion and IPv6 deployment, these networks are facing a perfect storm: multiple, simultaneous, large-scale changes.”

According to the report, the Internet is not IPv6 ready. A majority of surveyed providers reported concerns over the security implications of IPv6 adoption and the slow rate of IPv4 to IPv6 migration, or at least the parallel deployment of IPv6, the report said.

“As in previous years, providers complained of missing IPv6 security features in routers, firewalls and other critical network infrastructure,” the report noted. “Other providers worry the lack of IPv6 testing and deployment experience may lead to significant Internet-wide security vulnerabilities.”

An Arbor Network study recently found that IPv6 traffic accounted for only 0.03% of all Internet traffic, up from just 0.002% last year. While this represented a significant increase, IPv6 still only accounts for a tiny fraction of aggregated traffic today, the report found.

“This year’s report shows that respondents are struggling to operate, maintain, secure and defend their networks in the face of looming IPv4 address exhaustion and concerns surrounding IPv6 migration and security,” said Craig Labovitz, chief scientist, Arbor Networks.

In addition to the operational and technical challenges of migrating to IPv6, Arbor Networks also noted that lack of skilled resources, and lack of clearly-defined operational policies and responsibilities and management understanding and commitment are also significant obstacles to IPv6 migration.

Article Courtesy of CommsDay International