Gateways and Componentsfor Supplementary IP Telephony Servicesin Heterogeneous Environmentsvom Fachbereich 20der Technischen Universität Darmstadt genehmigteDissertationin englischer Sprachezur Erlangung des Grades einesDoktor Ingenieur (Dr. Ing.)vonDipl. Inf. Ralf Ackermanngeboren am 23.09.1967 in AltenburgDarmstadt 2003Hochschulkennziffer D17Vorsitz: Prof. Dr. Claudia EckertErstreferent: Prof. Dr. Ing. Ralf SteinmetzKorreferent: Prof. Henning Schulzrinne (Ph.D.)Tag der Einreichung: 13.05.2003Tag der Disputation: 10.07.2003AbstractIP Telephony is a demanding interactive real time service that already supplements the tradi tional telephony system to a considerable extent. It is expected to become a genuine alternativewith a variety of new attractive services in the future. The recent situation and developmentsin the IP Telephony area are characterized by a variety of different usage environments, sig naling approaches, protocols, devices and applications. We show that this situation, that istypically referred to as heterogeneity, has a number of inherent reasons and is not going tovanish within the near future.In many cases the different telephony components are not directly interoperable or their inter-action is restricted to just a subset of the full capabilities. These circumstances make gatewaysthat provide adequate interworking significant.