With its long history and deployment to every corner of the globe, Internet Protocol (IP) is increasingly viewed as more than a way to move data, but also as a tool for simplifying and streamlining a whole range of business applications. Telephony is the most obvious example, with Voice over IP and IP telephony becoming increasingly popular, from large corporations to consumers. Understanding the terms is a first step toward learning the potential of this technology:
Voice over IP (VoIP) refers to a way to carry phone calls over an IP data network, whether the public Internet or an organization’s own internal network. One of the primary attractions of VoIP is its ability to help companies reduce expenses because telephone calls travel over the data network rather than the phone company’s network.
IP Telephony encompasses the full suite of telephony services enabled by VoIP, including the interconnection of phones for actual communications; related services such as billing and dialing plans; and basic features such as conferencing, transfer, forward, hold, and many more. These services might previously have been provided by a private branch exchange (PBX)
IP Communications evolves the concept another step to include business applications that enhance communications to enable applications such as unified messaging, integrated contact centers, and rich-media conferencing that combines voice, data, and video.
Public Internet phone calling is an exciting new service that uses the Internet for connecting phone calls, especially for consumers. But most businesses are using IP telephony across their own managed private networks because it allows them to better handle security and service quality. Using their own networks, companies have more control in ensuring the voice service is as good as, if not better than, the services they would have previously experienced from their traditional phone service.
