FTS 2000 contractors, for instance, have already made significant investments in IP interoperability. With a core set of authentication, accounting, security, access control and user registry functions, it can provide support for both operations and management applications. Researchers are demonstrating voice, video and fax over IP services. Other vendors are developing voice and fax over IP hardware and software to offload traffic from public switched networks to existing data infrastructures. Voice quality, though inferior to what you get over existing public networks, is better than that provided by products that use the Internet.
Some agencies are interested.
Although the agency hasn't conducted any pilot demonstrations, NASA officials have said they are considering initiating one within the next 18 months. NASA is interested in supporting integrated voice and data delivery to remote science investigators. The agency wants to reduce the costs of maintaining dedicated voice circuits for real-time space flight operations. The information technology folks at the Federal Aviation Administration are not ready to trust the Internet for operational traffic. Lack of security and reliability limit the role the Internet will play in FAA's plans.