Croak, Dr Marian Rogers – Inventor of VoIP
By
John C Abercrombie
This Week’s Black History Post and Discussion.
Discussions will resume Sunday, January 8, 2023.
We are live every Sunday at 4:00 pm Eastern, 1:00 pm Pacific. Join us for exciting information that historians have kept secret until now.
Join us January 8 and every Sunday. Ask questions and get answers. Make suggestions and help us get better. Our goal is to be your number one source of information.
Ways to Listen and Interact with Us:
- By phone Login to your BlogTalkRadio Schedule program Guest Call In(646) 668-8217
Computer Radio Station Link –blogtalkradio.com/crowntalkingdrums
One of the most overlooked technologies of the 21st century is Voice Over Internet Protocol which allows to communicate verbally over broadband connections. VoIP is the invisible scaffolding tht holds our digital lives together and is used on smartphones, tablets, in watches and other devices. All of this is possible through the over 100 patents held by Dr Marian Croak.
Dr Croak is a vice president of engineering at Google a well-known company. She was born in New York City and became interested in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics)
The ultimate goal of STEM education is to encourage students to take an interest in STEM subjects at an early age. This should be beneficial to them when they enter the jobs market, and in turn, it should benefit the greater economy. It is a simple definition with a straightforward goal.
Dr Croak developed an interest in STEM when her father built and introduced to it by building a chemistry set for her. Her interest led her to Princeton and the University of Southern California where she earned a PhD in both psychology and quantitative analysis. Her professional career started at Bell Labs, now known as AT&T in 1982 where she envisioned internet connections not only for linking computers but for making reliable and high-quality voice calls.
She started off in Bell’s Human Factors division, with the specific purpose of studying how technology could be used to positively impact human’s lives. Croak first began working on digital messaging applications, tasked with the study of determining if various messaging applications could communicate with each other. This kind of research was very novel, as the earliest form of the Internet would not come to full fruition until the next year in 1983. Bell Labs wanted to send voice, text, and video data digitally rather than using a standard phone line. And the favored mechanism for this was Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) protocol, but Croak, along with the rest of her team, convinced AT&T to use TCP/IP instead. TCP/IP allowed for a standardized way of packaging and communicating information.
“About 20 years ago, when I was still fairly new to the company and AT&T was looking at what would replace its legacy wireline phone network, I thought we were about to make a mistake by not moving to Internet protocol,” Dr. Croak said in 2014. “I realized I had to advocate—loudly! —for that technology if AT&T was going to maintain its leadership position. The key was finding a few coworkers who shared my conviction. Our voices together were ultimately able to win over others to our point of view.”
VoIP uses a phone system to make and receive calls through an internet connection rather than traditional landlines. If you have an internet connection, you can call anyone without the need for traditional, local phone service or physical copper wires. All you need is high-speed internet and a VoIP service provider to handle the calls. The best part is that you aren’t bound to a specific desk. You can use a VoIP phone number via a business phone app to turn your computer or any mobile device into a phone.
While at AT&T, Croak and her team contemplated the potential of digital telecommunications. She worked on advancing Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) technologies, converting voice data into digital signals that can be easily transmitted over the internet rather than using traditional phone lines. Her work has furthered the capabilities of audio and video conferencing and is used in many of the conferencing technologies in use today.
During her time at AT&T she patented the technology that allowed cellphone users to donate money to organizations using text messaging. She developed this technology during the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and it revolutionized how people donate to charitable organizations when a natural disaster occurs. She received the 2013 Thomas Edison Patent Award for this technology. She was inspired to do this after seeing AT&T develop technology that helped American Idol set up a voting system that relied on text messages rather than voice calls, in 2003. The technology that she created with co-inventor Hossein Eslambolchi, was not finalized until October 2005, a couple of months after Hurricane Katrina. But through this technology after the 2010 Haiti earthquake, more than $43 million in donations were collected by relief organizations through donations by text message.
Before leaving AT&T she held the title of Senior Vice President of Applications and Services Infrastructure. At AT&T she managed over 2,000 engineers and computer scientists responsible for over 500 programs impacting AT&T’s enterprise and consumer wireline and mobility services. Her responsibilities ranged from product realization and service planning to development and testing.
A trusted VoIP provider can handle everything for you. Plug your IP phone in, and you’re done. These digital phones use your high-speed internet connection to establish connectivity.
VoIP converts your phone calls into data that is sent over the internet. You can use the Ethernet cables or skip them if you have a strong Wi-Fi signal. It does so at a much lower cost than older telephone systems. Voice over IP has many advantages over traditional phone service.
Dr Croak was inducted into the National Inventor Hall of Fame in 2022 holding more than 100 patents in the field and over 200 in total. This is an amazing accomplishment and should be an inspiration to many that it is only impossible in your own mind. Change your mind, change many lives!
Dr Croak eventually became Senior Vice President of Research and Development at AT&T, before moving to Google, where she’s now involved in the ethical and responsible development of artificial intelligence.
Croak joined Google in 2014, as a Vice President in the engineering group. At Google, she is responsible for expanding what the Internet is capable of doing around the world and increasing access to the Internet in the developing World. She created a new center of expertise on Responsible AI within Google Research. Croak also works on racial justice efforts at Google and continues her goal of encouraging women and young girls in engineering.
**
We started this site to bring you the untold stories of excellence and inspiration. While we focus on achievement, it is necessary to contrast it to the difficulties that have prevented more from joining the ranks of the great and well known. This is not done with an eye of only inspiring a particular race, gender, religion, but all people benefit from the work of others.
To this end, we include videos and books allowing a fuller understanding of the subject and providing a source of additional information for those inspired to explore more. Interspersed you will find offers from partners which allow you to support our work without cost to you. How do we do this? We partner with others who pay us a small royalty for purchases made using our links without cost to you.
What if I am not interested in the product in the link?
Simply click on the unwanted item in the cart and click remove, then shop to your heart’s content. We both benefit from this action. We can provide you with quality information and you benefit from our posts.
Example, the link is to refrigerators, but you are looking for athletic shoes. Use any link, click on the item in the cart, remove and continue to shop. We thank you and appreciate and depend on your support.
**
Marian Croak
Speaker Series: Marian Croak
Dr. Marian Croak holds more than 200 patents and has more than 100 pending applications. Her many achievements include pioneering work advancing the Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), developing text-to-donate technology, and work on the telephone network and voting system used for American Idol®.
On October 21, 2020 Dr. Croak, USPTO Director Andrei Iancu, and an online audience discussed her decades of work on advanced technologies for voice and data networks and the internet. The conversation included her career, what inspired her, and the future of innovation.
**
Book
21st Century Black Changemakers: Biography Coloring
In this unique biography coloring book, twelve ready-to-color portraits sit across from short profiles of 21st-century black changemakers, people from various fields who have made history in this century. Color the grayscale pages that follow each bio. The same images are presented in full color, so feel free to use the completed color versions as references or use your own color palettes to create your renditions.
ABH – Black Changemakers Coloring
**
Ancestry Test Kits
Discover the deep rich heritage that is you using these options
ABH – Ancestry Test Kits
*
The following book is a great addition to the above and can be used to answer and further your search for ancestors that can bring pride to you. We come from strong roots, discover and take pride!
Black Roots: A Beginners Guide To Tracing The African American Family Tree
Trace, document, record, and write your family’s history with this easy-to-read, step-by-step authoritative guide.
Finally, here is the fun, easy-to-use guide that African Americans have been waiting for since Alex Haley published Roots more than twenty-five years ago. Written by the leading African American professional genealogist in the United States who teaches and lectures widely, Black Roots highlights some of the special problems, solutions, and sources unique to African Americans. Based on solid genealogical principles and designed for those who have little or no experience researching their family’s past, but valuable to any genealogist, this book explains everything you need to get started, including: where to search close to home, where to write for records, how to make the best use of libraries and the Internet, and how to organize research, analyze historical documents, and write the family history.
This guide also includes:
-real case histories that illustrate the unique challenges posed to African Americans and how they were solved
-more than 100 illustrations and photographs of actual documents and records you’re likely to encounter when tracing your family tree
-samples of all the worksheets and forms you’ll need to keep your research in order
-a list of the traps even experienced researchers often fall into that hamper their research
**
Inventor Card Unveiling: Marian Croak
Director Andrei Iancu unveils our newest collectible inventor card at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Global Innovation Policy Center Equality of Opportunity in the Innovation Economy Conference on October 1, 2020. Card reveal – 7:35
Dr. Marian Croak is a VP of Engineering at Google and holds over 200 patents in Voice-over-IP (VoIP) and digital technology.
**
Book
Packet Guide to Voice over IP: A system administrator’s guide to VoIP technologies
Go under the hood of an operating Voice over IP network, and build your knowledge of the protocols and architectures used by this Internet telephony technology. With this concise guide, you’ll learn about services involved in VoIP and get a first-hand view of network data packets from the time the phones boot through calls and subsequent connection teardown.
**
Magic Jack
VoIP phone service
**
An Insight with Marian Croak and Lindiwe Matlali | Pioneers of Change
Join a conversation between Marian Croak, Vice-President of Engineering, Google, and Vice-President of Site Reliability, YouTube, USA, and Lindiwe Matlali, Chief Executive Officer, Africa Teen Geeks, for a discussion on the impact of diversity and the role of women of colour in the tech industry.
The World Economic Forum is the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation. The Forum engages the foremost political, business, cultural and other leaders of society to shape global, regional and industry agendas. We believe that progress happens by bringing together people from all walks of life who have the drive and the influence to make positive change.
**
Book
How to Start a VoIP Business: A Six-Stage Guide to Becoming a VoIP Service Provider
How to Start a VoIP Business: A Six-Stage Guide to Becoming a VoIP Service Provider is the first book which explains in plain English how to become a VoIP provider and start different services, based on a VoIP technology. This simple six-stage guide will give you the know-how of launching services, such as:
• Mobile VoIP
• Callback
• Calling cards
• Call shops
• Residential VoIP
• Virtual PBX
• SIP trunking
• Wholesale transit
• Call origination
• Call termination
By using this step-by-step guide you will learn:
• What VoIP (IP telephony) is and how it differs from traditional telecommunication services
• How VoIP is regulated in different countries
• What VoIP-based business models and services you can launch
• How to choose which service has the high potential in your market
• How to identify your target audience for VoIP service
• How to choose between VoIP reseller and VoIP provider
• What is a softswitch and why it is considered as a key VoIP platform
• How to select infrastructure for VoIP business
• How to find VoIP termination provider
• How to find other partners and suppliers for VoIP operations
• How to properly launch VoIP services
• How to adjust and grow your VoIP business
To make the complex simple, the book is divided into six informative, but easily readable chapters. The labels of sections are defined clearly and can be skipped by those who are already familiar with the material.
ABH – Starting a Voip business
**
Internet Booster
**
Patent Series: Meet Marian Rogers Croak,
There is no Zelle or CashApp, no What’s App, no Zoom or Skype without the technology invented by a Black woman. Marian Rogers Croak, one of the most senior ranking Black members at Google, developed voice-over IP. She is an engineer with more than 200 patents. Shontavia Johnson shares her story.
**
Book
VoIP Deployment For Dummies
So you’re in charge of implementing a VoIP phone system for your organization? VoIP Deployment For Dummies is a crash course in Voice over Internet Protocol implementation!
Here’s how to analyze your network and implement a VoIP phone system, manage and maintain it, keep it secure, and troubleshoot problems. You’ll learn how to plan the rollout, work with Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), handle fax issues, and keep your users happy.
• Understand how VoIP works, common misconceptions about it, and the pros and cons for your organization
• Compare and comprehend hardware and software choices
• Discover the options for touch tones and faxing via VoIP systems
• Analyze network devices, IP addresses, connections to remote sites, and other aspects that will affect VoIP implementation
• Draw up a test plan, check out both voice and fax transmission, get a report, and schedule the installation
• Investigate SIP call generation, identify the elements, understand cancelled calls, and re-INVITE calls
• Troubleshoot your system, identify call variables, trace the source of a problem, manage trouble tickets, and resolve failures
• Manage latency, jitter, and flap, and take advantage of Wireshark
• Find out what to expect when your system goes live
Written by an expert with extensive real-world experience in VoIP implementation and management, VoIP Deployment For Dummies provides the know-how you need. You’ll be able to implement your system and manage any issues proactively, which is sure to look good to your boss!
**
Headset
**
Marian Croak is a developer, who’s apps are used everyday.
Marian Croak is a developer, who’s patents are used everyday.
Marian Rogers Croak is a Vice President of Engineering at Google. She has previously served as Senior Vice President of Research and Development at AT&T Labs. She is credited as a developer of Voice over IP creating most of methods and features that both improved its reliability and ushered in its nearly universal adoption.
**
To see the full listing of post (over 250 and counting), click on our Blog list
Current Mini-series on voting
Voting Tutorial – Click this important link
Voting – Voter Suppression – Click this important link
Voting – Gerrymandering Explained, This post
For Black History Month 2020, we posted daily. These posts focus on the reality of Black life in America after the Civil War culminating in the landmark Brown v Board of Education that changed so many of the earlier practices. To see the posts, click here
For Black History Month 2021, we focused on Black Medical Achievements, Inventors and Scientists. To see those posts, click here.
For Black History Month 2022 we focused on “Health and Wellness”. To see the entire series, click this link.
For Women’s History Month 2022 we introduced you to 31 amazing Black women we should all know. To see the entire series, click this link.
We also posted a 5 part mini-series on the 100th anniversary of one of the most horrific massacres in the history of America. Hundreds of Blacks were slaughtered and 10,000 left homeless in this largely unknown event. To see the posts, click here.
We also did a mini-series on the Schomburg Center for Research a most amazing collection of Black history and culture. To see this mini-series, click here
The Schomburg Center
A world class collection of Black History inspired by a 5th grade teacher who told Arturo Schomburg that there was NO African history. Nothing of value. Schomburg dedicated his life to proving that teacher wrong and Schomburg did an amazing job with his collection.
Schomburg – The man who built a library
To comment or make suggestions on future posts, use Contact Us
**
It is difficult to imagine there ever being laws preventing the teaching of Blacks either slave or free to read and write but we see in the person of Dr Croak the reason why. Not only could Blacks learn, but they could excel as in this and so many other cases. The most effective way to avoid competition is not to provide an equal foundation in the form of education. In many parts of America, it was unlawful for people of different races to compete in any competition, including checkers or baseball and not because the Whites would always win. In most places when a slave was freed, that person had 1 year to get out of the state or face re-enslavement. This avoided as much as possible slaves seeing the possibility of freedom. Education is the key.