The fallout from the bubble burst had an impact on Voice over IP (VoIP) as well. Was VoIP going to be an additional victim of the technologies and startups that were attached to the new way of doing business? You don't have to look into a crystal ball to determine the outcome. The marketplace has decided. VoIP, and in general, IP communications, is and will continue to be the de facto mechanism for communications for the foreseeable future.

With the rapid adoption of Voice over IP (VoIP), many telephony and data network technicians, engineers, and designers are now working to become proficient in VoIP. Professional certifications, such as Cisco's Cisco Certified Voice Professional (CCVP) certification, offer validation of an employee's or a consultant's competency in specific technical areas.

As the number and sophistication of virtual private network (VPN) technologies has grown, the complexity of choice, design, and deployment has also increased. It is now possible to implement site-to-site VPNs, remote access VPNs, LAN-to-LAN VPNs, trusted VPNs, secure VPNs, L1VPNs, L2VPNs, L3VPNs, VPWS VPNs, VPLS VPNs, IPLS VPNs, network-based VPNs, C(P)E-based VPNs, multiservice VPNs, provider-provisioned VPNs, customer-provisioned VPNs, Internet VPNs, intranet VPNs, extranet VPNs, point-to-point VPNs, multipoint-to-multipoint VPNs, overlay VPNs, peer (-to-peer) VPNs, connection-oriented VPNs, connectionless VPNs, and clientless VPNs.

In recent years, network security solutions have grown to include IPsec as a critical component of secure network architecture design. One primary objective of this publication is therefore to provide the reader with a basic working knowledge of IPsec on various Cisco routing and switching platforms and an understanding of the different components of the Cisco IPsec implementation.

The motivation behind this book is the continued interest in the implementation of quality of service(QoS) in IP/MPLS networks. QoS arises as a key requirement for these networks, which have become the preferred technology platform for building converged networks that support multiple services. The topic can be one of the most complex aspects of the network design, implementation, and operation. Despite the importance of and interest in this topic, no other Cisco Press title provides a detailed discussion of this subject. A significant amount of the content of this book also applies to pure IP networks that do not have immediate plans to migrate to a full IP/MPLS network.

Today, new inventions and developments are again poising telecommunications as a force to be reckoned with, changing human communications and commerce, and introducing machines as members of the networked society.

Speech is a natural mode of communication for people. We learn all the relevant skills during early childhood, without instruction, and we continue to rely on speech communication throughout our lives. It comes so naturally to us that we don’t realize how complex a phenomenon speech is...

ULTRA-WIDEBAND WIRELESS COMMUNICATIONS AND NETWORKS