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Q: What is the H.323 Forum™?
A: The H.323 Forum™ was created under IMTC (with ITU support) to address a growing industry need to promote H.323 protocol awareness. While H.323 solutions are widespread, inaccurate protocol information abounds even to this day. H.323 Forum™ provided the needed H.323 industry voice and meeting place.
Q: Who can join the H.323 Forum™?
A: The H.323 Forum™ was open to everyone, but formal activities have concluded. H.323 membership was automatically extended to all IMTC members. There was also an H.323-only membership level. The mailing lists are still operational and technical and business questions are still posted to those lists. For IMTC membership information, refer to membership for details.
Q: What benefits do H.323 members receive?
A: All members and non-members can browse the website, post H.323-related news/white papers, join the email alias, and could participate in H.323 Forum™ planning activities. H.323 Forum™ membership, however, provided the following additional benefits.
- List product/company links on the H.323 Forum™ website
- Attend H.323 Forum™ certification events
- Receive H.323 Forum™ product/solution certification
- Attend H.323 Forum™ conference events
Q: How do I track H.323 Forum™ progress?
A: The formal activities of the H.323 Forum have concluded. However, while it was operating, all H.323 Forum™ planning meetings were announced on the H.323 Forum™ Mailing List. In addition the mailing list is used to report meeting minutes, hold ongoing technical discussions threads, and announce upcoming H.323 Forum™ events. Anyone is welcome to join the mailing list where discussion still takes place.
Q: What information can be submitted to the H.323 Forum™ News and Events pages?
A: The H.323 Forum™ is interested in posting all H.323-related news including product announcements, standards status, service provider offerings, network/service deployments, etc. Refer to News and Events for details.
Q: What is H.323 Forum™ certification program?
A: H.323 Forum™ defined product/solution certification requirements and levels. The certification definition team included representation from both Service Providers and equipment vendors. The H.323 Forum™ adopted a self-certification program whereby companies could individually or collectively certify their products/solutions. This could be done by the company themselves, at an H.323 Forum™ certification event, or through third parties (for a fee).
Q: What H.323 Forum™ conferences will occur?
A: H.323 Forum™ held a yearly conference addressing a full spectrum of H.323-related topics ranging from technical, marketing, services, standards, Service Provider and regulatory. In addition, it held periodic on-line meetings addressing a specific topic of interest, for example, H.323 through Firewalls/NATs. Since successfully meeting its objectives, the H.323 Forum™ has concluded formal activities and does not plan to sponsor any additional events.
Q: What about the future of H.323?
A: The H.323 Forum™ succeeded in its objectives and we are pleased to say that H.323 is, as of 2008, still the most widely deployed, IP-based standard multimedia communication in the world. H.323 is widely used in videoconferencing systems around the world and, at the end of 2006, carried more than 15.8% of all of the world's international voice calls and more than 65% of all international VoIP calls. (For your information, Skype accounted for 18.1% and varous other standard and non-standard protocols accounted for the last 16.7%.) H.323 is still being actively developed and deployed. However, technology does not stand still. While the H.323 standard is still being enhanced with new functionality, researchers are now looking at the next significant evolution in multimedia communications: the Advanced Multimedia System (AMS), or H.325.
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