Configurable and Multi-user

The VoIP lab is architected to be highly configurable and to support multiple projects simultaneously. There are over 30 test positions distributed across the lab tables. Students connect PCs or other specialized equipment to the test positions. The test positions are cabled to patch panels at the back of the room from which connections can be made to common equipment including hubs, switches and routers.Patch panels also provide access to the Internet via the IIT campus backbone network and to analog access links to the PSTN.

This layout enables the student to create various network configurations and to study their effects on quality of service, security, routing and other aspects of VoIP service.  It enables the creation of VPNs for our industry lab partners to use when they need remote access to proprietary code and records.  This layout also makes the lab an environment that can be shared by many students and projects simultaneously.

Resources

Lab resources include a variety of hubs, switches and routers as well as various pieces of specialized services and equipment including a call load generator, lines to a SIP Trunk service, lines to the hosted Vonage service, and various vendors’ IP PBXes and VoIP Phones and servers. In the course of student projects we have installed and made use of many different free ware tools and functional elements.

Projects Activities include test, development and research

Test: A number of test projects have been undertaken that characterized the behavior of a system, or that benchmarked its performance. A project now in the planning stage involves developing code that measures the metrics described in the IETF BMWG drafts at
https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/draft-poretsky-sip-bench-term/
https://datatracker.ietf.org/drafts/draft-poretsky-bmwg-sip-bench-meth/

Development: Development projects have included an invention that allows a hearing impaired person to use a SIP phone without the need for a human interpreter. The demonstration code enabled the hearing impaired person to phone the pizza delivery service, with no special announcements, signing or other arrangements. A second project resulted in a patent application (patent pending) for an appliance that provides location information that can be used when an emergency phone call is placed. A third project, also patent pending, is an appliance that prevents steganographic theft in the RTP stream created by a VoIP call.

Research: Research projects are focused on VoIP Architectures and their security and quality of service impacts.We are currently studying the IMS architecture, using the OpenIMS code to create the P-, I- and S-CSCFs and HSS, and including a SEG, in the form of the Reef Point IMS-enabled router. Our P2P test bed is based on the Chord DHash code and we plan to follow developments in the IETF’s p2p working group and incorporate SIP soft phones into this environment.  SIP-IIT includes four SIP domains connected to a higher-level domain. This test bed, which runs IETF SIP enables us to study SIP routing between peering domains. The IP PBX environment is populated with Digium-Asterisk appliances.

If you are interested in a joint project with the Rice Campus VoIP test beds please contact Carol Davids.