www.chrisdriggers.com

It’s been a long week. I busted my ass at work this week, and studied hard most nights. So now it’s Friday night, and where am I? That’s right. I’m at ERC doing some more studying. The test this time is Cisco Voice Over IP. Think of it as a primer course for someone completely uninitiated in the world of traditional telephony.

In my field, there’s a great convergence going on between traditional telephony and data systems. On one side you have your copper wire phone technicians and PBX guys who know their system and are very resistant to change. On the other side you have your data guy, who is certified and can program routers in his sleep, but when you say POTS, he ain’t thinking about a phone

Then there’s guys like me and my coworkers. We saw this convergence coming and have been trying to stay ahead of curve. Which is why I’ve been studying so much. It’s not easy to learn, but it is very interesting. And once you’ve programmed a few routers and firewall, and installed a few servers, that gets boring. So now I have a whole new area of technology to play with. I won’t be getting bored any time soon because there are constant innovations that keep things from getting stale.

So anyway right now I’m reading about SIP, which stands for Session Initiation Protocol. Sounds boring, but it’s the basis for Googletalk and Vonage, and other Instant Messaging applications. You’ve probably noticed that IM programs are offering more features than simple chat, like real-time video, and the ability to make phone calls. This is another facet of the convergence that everyday folks are getting to experience. I get to set up these converged voice/video/data networks, and I get paid to do it! It’s like getting paid to play video games, or go to the movies. It’s awesome.

Enough babbling. Back to work!