Wireline and wireless carriers are in the midst of a transition that is at least as profound as effects combining the retirement of cord-board operators, the adoption of SS7, and the telecom transition from analog to digital.

While the implications are large for the internal telco infrastructure, they are even bigger for businesses that will see the TDM / SS7 network unplugged within seven years. The FCC has assured consumers that most voice equipment will be interoperable as TDM switches are retired, but businesses that haven’t already made the transition to VoIP and other IP communications platforms will eventually need to do so.

Much of the business case for installing VoIP as a core telco service platform is driven by cost reductions in network maintenance, energy, radio spectrum usage (with VoLTE for wireless carriers), and physical central office space. However, telcos are also creating opportunity for a whole new range of services.

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As we enter our final week of publication for this Network World blog, today we’ll look at how real time communications technologies such as WebRTC, Microsoft’s Skype for Business, and collaboration will factor into what comes next for unified communications.

WebRTC and other real time protocols including Object Real Time Communications (ORTC) that eliminate the need for plug-in software to function will have a lasting effect on unified communications. As noted in the 2015 WebRTC State of the Market Report, over half of businesses are already using WebRTC or plan to use it in 2015, and over three-quarters of respondents will use it next year and beyond. However, these protocols won’t replace UC platforms; rather they will complement UC solutions that are already available today.

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We’ve looked back at how VoIP and convergence have evolved over the past 15 years: in part one of this series, we outlined the early days of VoIP from 1995 to 2000, then tracked how VoIP evolved into unified communications and collaboration (UC&C) between 2010 and 2015 in the second part of this report. Today, we’ll look at three factors that will shape the future of UC&C’s evolution over the next five years including cloud, mobility, and video.

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In part one of this history lesson, we noted that by “Y2K”, VoIP was alive and well in the long distance carrier market, beginning its journey into replacing legacy PBX voice systems with an IP-PBX. Supplemented by Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), the IP PBX brought new capabilities to enterprise voice services including features such as the ability to integrate directories, softphones, and presence management.

The session border controller (SBC) was born, initially to offer voice carriers a meet point for VoIP calls as a means to set up and tear down calls. The SBC soon evolved into a gateway device to allow interoperability between calls that used different signaling protocols that included SIP, H.323, and MGCP. SBCs eventually added performance monitoring and management, also helping to solve VoIP security concerns with techniques such as stateful packet inspection. As enterprises added IP communications systems, the SBC found its way into corporate networks as a useful interface between the enterprise and carrier VoIP and IP networks.

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At the end of this month this Network World blog will retire, so we’d like to dedicate part of the remaining editions to look back over the past 15 years- and look forward to the evolution of real time communications.

When we started this blog 15 years ago as a digital newsletter, VoIP was old enough to go to kindergarten, with about the same coping skills as a five year old human—functional but not yet ready to take over the world. After all, VoIP got its start in 1995 as a technology that offered computer-to-computer voice calls using a microphone and speakers. There was no “signaling” per se on those first calls; users would call each other on the PSTN to establish a voice-over-data call between their computers. Over time, H.323 and associated ITU-T standards would set the foundation for voice codecs and signaling protocols.

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Apple and Cisco announced a partnership to create a fast lane for iOS business users by optimizing Cisco networks for iOS devices and apps, integrating iPhone with Cisco enterprise environments, and providing unique collaboration on iPhone and iPad.

In a statement, Apple CEO Tim Cook said, “iOS is the world’s best mobile platform, and nearly every Fortune 500 and Global 500 company today has put iOS at the center of their mobile strategy. iPhone and iPad have become essential tools for the modern workforce and are changing the way work gets done. Together with Cisco, we believe we can give businesses the tools to maximize the potential of iOS and help employees become even more productive using the devices they already love.”

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ADTRAN has launched its Virtual Network Function (VNF) solution suite, offering telecom and cable service providers a way to transition customer premises equipment (CPE) solutions to virtualized, software-based networks. The move comes as carriers are shifting away from legacy computing platforms, copper-based delivery, and TDM voice infrastructures-- moving toward IP services delivered over fiber that are supported by virtual, software defined network elements.

The solution suite includes a customizable set of VNFs, designed to help service providers improve the efficiency, performance and costs of a typical network function virtualization (NFV) deployment.

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We sat down recently with Richard McBee, the Chief Executive Officer at Mitel to get his take on where the unified communications (UC) industry sits today and to ask for his insights about forward-looking trends. At the mid-year point for 2015, Mitel showed modest overall revenue growth compared to the same period in 2014, but it did show impressive growth results for its mobile business and cloud business units. Mitel was also positioned as a leader for UC in Gartner’s magic quadrant in a report released earlier this month.

Earlier this year, Mitel acquired Mavenir- helping the company achieve year-over-year revenue growth of 35% according to McBee. Mitel’s cloud business also grew 21% by adding 235,500 new cloud seats in the quarter, bringing its total cloud installed customer base to over 1.6 million users.

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