News Page - What's New?

Web Changes	Standards Activities
Latest Press Releases	Industry Conferences
Late Breaking Standards News	Latest HC Publications
Current HC Activities

Web Changes

This is where we'll announce most recent additions to our web site. If you've visited us before and want to know what's changed, take a look here first.

Latest Press Releases

These are the press releases we issued on key events in the company.

October 12, 1999 - Human Communications Initiates Standards Briefings by Teleconference - First Conference on ITU-T Study Group 8 Fax Standards Slated for October 28, 1999
December 20, 1998 - Human Communications Establishes Enhanced Web Site - See the press release for more details.
December 8, 1997 - Human Communications Plans to Release Supplementary Report on Fax Routing, including via Internet Fax
March 7, 1997 -- Awarded "Best of Fax Report" by AFAHC Fax Routing Report
December 9, 1996 -- Human Communications Releases Report On Fax Standards Routing and Practice

Late Breaking Standards News

James created a new page for his IP Multimedia System Workshop, which was presented in an early version at the Speechtek conference.

James updated his renowned About Internet Fax page, which includes links to Internet Fax Resources, on this site.

James updated his renowned Fax Glossary and Fax Resource pages on this site with updated links and some additional material.

James wrote a provocative article on the differences between the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) and Peer to Peer for Voice over IP for Internet Telephony.

James wrote an article for Internet Telephony in early 2004 on one of his favorite topics, real time Fax over IP. Click here for the article.

James wrote an article for Embedded Control Europe on the Status Quo and Outlook for Voice over IP in Fall, 2003. It was reprinted in the Brooktrout Upstream newsletter, which you can find here.

The ITU-T has completed an up-to-date version of T.38 for real-time IP fax in 2002 which includes Annexes D and E on T.38 via SIP and Megaco. James was a key contributor to these annexes. The ITU-T is also in the process of approving the V.150 series on Modem over IP communications. See articles for a related article written by James.

James has written an article for Network World tech update on the Megaco (Media Gateway Control Protocol) from the ITU and IETF. Click here to read the article.

James is quoted extensively in an article in the September 1999 issue of CTI magazine that provides an excellent introduction to Internet fax and reviews the quality of services benefits for customers that should become available in the next generation of standards based Internet Fax products and services! Click here to link to the article.

James has written a series of articles for Messaging Magazine, published by the EMA, on aspects of messaging integration especially involving the Internet. The series covers the following topics:

July-August (1997): Status of standards efforts to integrate voice, fax, and Internet mail
September-October (1997): Status of standards work on conducting real-time voice and fax communications via the Internet
November-December (1997): An overview of efforts by the IETF Drums working group to explain and refine the core Internet Mail standards
January-February (1998): A review of four customer messaging problems that can be addressed by emerging standards

Click here to go to the on-line verson of EMA's Messaging Magazine.

The July 1998 issue of BTA Solutions from the Business Technology Association has an article on Internet Fax 101, where James and other industry leaders are quoted on the state of standards and related products.
The January 1998 issue of Inc.has an article on an Internet fax service where James is quoted on what it will take for Internet fax to be useful for small businesses.

Standards Activities

James is participating in the review of a new Internet Draft on providing security for T.38 IP Fax sessions via DTLS within the MMusic working group of the IETF. For more information, see his presentation on SlideShare.
James is the co-author for the Internet Draft on a Mechanism for User-to-User Information (UUI) in the Internet Engineering Task Force. The work is useful for applications such as contact centers and has been implemented in early pre-standard versions in the Dialogic IMG and BorderNet 2020 products which James managed.
In 1999-2000, James was active in the Megaco working group of the IETF and in related work in ITU-T Study Group 16 where he contributed to the development of H.248/Megaco "packages" for Call Discrimination, IP Fax and Fax. See articles for a related article written in 2002. James wrote an article in Network World on this work in August 2000. Click here to read the article.
Check out the Internet Fax Resource information on this site for links to the Internet fax RFCs - RFCs 2301-2306 and RFCs 2530-2532, RFC 3302
See our information on this site for the latest developments in Internet Fax Standards

Industry Conferences

James spoke on Securing IP Fax: A New Standard Approach at the SIPNOC 2014 in June, 2014. The presentation can be seen on SlideShare.
James was the moderator for a Birds of a Feather session on video codecs at the WebRTC Conference in Santa Clara on the date of November 20, 2013.
James has spoke on panels at the SIPNOC conference presented by the SIP Forum from 2011 to 2014 on topics which include WebRTC, IPV6, SIP and SS7 and Fax over IP
Internet Fax Technology Class
IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) Workshop as presented by James at the Speechtek conference

Latest HC Publications

HC President and founder James Rafferty blogs on the latest topics in communications in his Communications Advisor blog.
We had established an email mailing list which we used to keep our business contacts up to date on HC and telecommunications industry news. Our messages, which were sent out about once a month, are called HC News and Notes. (no longer active) To read the current and previous editions, go here!
The first edition of the Human Communications Standards Update on Fax Routing, has been well received in the industry and is still available. We believe it is still the definitive study on Fax Routing from both a customer and vendor perspective.
For this report, we have now included excerpts from the Executive Summary for those readers who would like to know more about standards-based fax routing and get a preview of the report's contents and conclusions.

Latest HC Activities

In August, 2013, James resumed consulting activities as President of Human Communications. For the latest information on the mission and goals of Human Communications, please see our About Human Communications page.
On December 16, 1999, James Rafferty joined Brooktrout Technology and suspended active operations of Human Communications. We continued to maintain the HC web site as a public service to those people on the Internet who need information on the advanced Internet and Telecommunications technologies which were our speciality.