Over the past week what should be standard isn't anymore. First was the fact that Pay as You Go SIMs on SFR in France and the iOS on iPhones stopped working. After some work and a day later, SFR support admitted that the settings needing updating, and are different than the ones that are published everywhere.
Then there was the hotel/resort that this past July that everything worked perfectly. Then Apple changed what it does with Java and voila, I can't log on with my MacBook under OS 10.8.2 without the IT guy doing what we used to call Sysop magic. It seems the service that provides the gateway will be changing in January so they're not keen on doing much.
Now with their gateway, IP calling works with Skype but Bria is another story, not because of any thing CounterPath has done, but because ONSip and they both follow standard, and the gateway, and the network NAT or in this case double NAT making some things like conference calling and vido conferencing a bit of a challenge.
Speaking of conference calls, there's the never ending signalling and media issues, coupled with echo and latency. Ever since the demise of HiDef Conferencing via Citrix which incorporated what made it great into GoToMeeting, nothing has ever really sounded as good or worked as well.
You see, when standards don't always get applied the same way by everyone, nothing really is standard. Back in the day, when everything was PSTN, everything was the same. Now, with so many different ways to do the same thing, nothing is really the same.
