IP telephony
is a general term for the technologies that
use the Internet Protocol's packet-switched
connections to exchange voice, fax, and other
forms of information that have traditionally
been carried over the dedicated circuit-switched
connections of the public switched telephone
network (PSTN). General advantages of IP telephony
are cost, increase in functionality and mobility
for an organization.
Advantages
Cost
In general, phone service via VoIP costs less
than equivalent service from traditional sources
but similar to alternative Public Switched Telephone
Network (PSTN) service providers. Some cost
savings are due to using a single network to
carry voice and data, especially where users
have existing under-utilized network capacity
they can use for VoIP at no additional cost.
Some Internet connections are asymmetrical,
i.e. the upstream data rate is significantly
lower than the downstream data rate. This places
a final absolute throttle to the transmitted
data rate and thus voice quality. The slowest
Internet connections can offer lower signal
quality than regular dedicated phone networks.
There are two types of PSTN to VoIP services:
DID and access numbers. DID will connect the
caller directly to the VoIP user while access
numbers requires the caller to input the extension
number of the VoIP user. Access numbers are
usually charged as a local call to the caller
and free to the VoIP user while DID usually
has a monthly fee. There are also DID that are
free to the VoIP user but is chargeable to the
caller.
Functionality
VoIP can facilitate tasks that may be more difficult
to achieve using traditional phone networks:
• Incoming phone calls can be automatically
routed to your VoIP phone, irrespective of where
you are connected to the network. Take your
VoIP phone with you on a trip, and anywhere
you connect it to the Internet, you can receive
your incoming calls.
• Call center agents using VoIP phones can work
from anywhere with a sufficiently fast Internet
connection.
• VoIP phones can integrate with other services
available over the Internet, including video
conversation, message or data file exchange
in parallel with the conversation, audio conferencing,
managing address books and passing information
about whether others (e.g. friends or colleagues)
are available online to interested parties.
Mobility
VoIP allows users to travel anywhere in the
world and still make and receive phone calls:
• Subscribers of phone-line replacement services
can make and receive local phone calls regardless
of their location. For example, if a user has
a New York City phone number and is traveling
in Europe and someone calls the phone number,
it will ring in Europe. Conversely, if a call
is made from Europe to New York City, it will
be treated as a local call. Of course, there
must be a connection to the Internet to make
all of this possible.
• Users of Instant Messenger based VoIP services
like Skype, Gizmo Project or Yahoo! Messenger
can also travel anywhere in the world and make
and receive phone calls.
Our IP based PBX from Vonexus Technologies,
a wholly owned subsidiary of Interactive
Intelligence, Inc. leads to complete
convergence of Voice and Data and also turbocharges
the benefits of switching to VoIP by
providing enhanced functionality like find-me,
follow-me features, presence management, voicemail,
fax-server and unified messaging technology
along with substantial cost savings over using
a regular PSTN network and a legacy PBX.
To know more about our
Enterprise Interaction Center, and
how it can help you, click
here.
