Web Services in communications services

The tremendous potential of Web Services to revolutionise distributed computing has been the subject of intense excitement across the spectrum of IT professionals. The communications industry has also realised the potential for using Web Services for constructing communication solutions. However, as yet there are relatively few real implementations of the technology, especially when applied to the real-time communications space. This paper describes a case study of a BT product that uses web services to offer real-time communications capability. The experiences gained during the development and deployment of this service are described. Based on these experiences, a future service with a richer set of capabilities is then proposed.