About the Reviewers

Jonathan Augenstine, Telephony Systems Development and Operations.

After graduating from college in 1982, Jonathan spent 12 years working in the analytical instrumentation field developing and deploying equipment into electronics and disk drive analysis applications. He worked in applications, engineering, and software development, and as product manager on the team that developed custom wafer monitoring equipment that was incorporated into wafer fabs for Intel, DEC, and IBM.

The next 18 years saw Jonathan take a new career path. After leaving the analytical equipment business, he moved into software development in the telecommunications market developing firmware for computer based telephony hardware at Dialogic, a telephony hardware manufacturer. He led the software development team tasked with migrating the system software and firmware from Unix on to the Windows NT platform.

Through various employment and consulting positions following his experience at Dialogic, including positions such as VP of Engineering and Network Operations, Jonathan has been instrumental in developing and managing operations of services that have integrated the POTS network with next generation Internet enabled applications. These projects included developing and deploying an international conferencing application with local access on four continents that integrated with radio stations streaming on the Internet. Participated in integrating SS7 capability with database locating services to enable E911 services on the mobile phone network. Other projects included development and operations of fax, conferencing, and IVR services that were deployed by companies such as WorldCom, Qwest, and J2 Global Communications in domestic and international markets that scaled into high volume usage.

The most recent project that Jonathan has pursued is the design and development of new technology that facilitates connecting directly to the voice-mail platform.

Eric Z. Beard is the Chief Technical Officer at AutoLoop, a company that provides communications and marketing software to the automotive industry. He has more than ten years experience as a software consultant and development team leader, working at companies such as Brainbench, British Telecom, AT&T, and America Online. He uses FreeSWITCH as a part of an outbound IVR system in combination with Microsoft Speech Server to make customer service calls for auto dealerships.

Hugh Irvine lives in Australia and is the founder and past President of the Internet Society of Australia as well as the founding Co-Director of APNIC in Australia.

He has over 30 years experience in computing and network engineering. His principle area of expertise is in Internet engineering and operation. He has worked for many companies throughout Canada, France, and Australia. He is currently an independent consultant.