IEEE Network • May/June 199924

he advent of IP telephony gives service providers a tremendous opportunity to offer both traditional ser-vices as well as a range of creative new services that integrate voice communications with data applications and exploit the power of intelligent end terminals. While ser-vices will continue to be provided through conventional tele-phones, the potential interaction with the network will increase through enhanced user interfaces. At the same time, IP telephony poses substantial chal-lenges. The signaling architecture must support both tradition-al services and new services enabled by intelligent end-points, while preserving user privacy and preventing service theft. User expectations of quality impose stringent requirements on both network and signaling performance. Meeting the net-work performance requirements calls for a resource manage