The European Telecommunications Standards Institute has launched Tiphon Net, a network for the development and testing of Internet Protocol telephony equipment and services. IP telephony networks need servers to switch and translate the IP signals to and from the Public Switched Telephone Network, known as IP gateways. The network initially has only four IP gateways, two in France run by France Telecom SA, and two in Austria run by Post & Telecom Austria. But ETSI has plans to build out a European and US wide network, with the co-operation of other telecoms carriers. The use of the Tiphon network will initially be restricted to companies wanting to test equipment for interoperability, in technology and services including charging, billing, security quality of service, and naming and addressing, all current problems or grey areas within IP telephony which the ETSI hopes to iron out in a two year program. So far ETSI has got a number of companies signed up to the effort including VocalTec Communications Ltd, Dialogic Corp, Telia AB, Deutsche Telecom AG, Lucent Technologies Inc, 3Com Corp, Alcatel Telecom SA, Nokia Oy, Siemens AG and LM Ericsson AB.
