Business VoIP and Converged Networks


by Michael Talbert - Date: 2007-01-26 - Word Count: 417 Share This!

For years businesses have been forced to maintain two separate networks, the local area network for data, and a telephone network, or PBX, for their telecommunications needs.

Converging the two networks into one is not a new idea, and in fact has been around since the eighties. At first, the idea was to merge the data onto the voice network, or the circut switched telephone network.

With the widespread acceptance of the Internet Protocol in the nineties, and the subsequent boom of the World Wide Web and its infrastructure, the emergence of a technology converting the analog voice into digital packets and routing them over the internet came to fruition. This technology came to be known as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

As a connectionless protocol, IP was not very well suited for time sensitive data such as video and voice. Tweaks had to be made, and came in the form of a suite of protocols known as Quality of Service, or QoS. QoS prioritizes time sensitive data packets, assuring that they arrive at their destination on time and in sequence. Consequently, the sound quality of voice traveling over the Internet has become as good as, if not better, than most well connected cell phone calls.

Today, the converged network has become a reality. Companies are realizing major cost savings by maintaining one network instead of two, and long distance and international toll charges compare extremely favorably to calls made over traditional telephone lines. Technological innovations in E-commerce such as voice enabled websites have become a reality thanks to the development of VoIP.

VoIP solutions for SMBs are varied and plentiful. Peer to peer VoIP providers like Skype allow anyone on the network to communicate worldwide for free. Software IP PBX solutions such as the open source Asterix can be downloaded and installed for free, and Internet phones exist that are themselves small computers, loaded with PBX software that allows them to join the network and configure themselves independently of human intervention. For more robust needs, hardware solutions such as the Cisco CallManager can be loaded on an IOS router or a Linux server, handling up to 30,000 IP phones.

Such issues as security concern many SMBs today, and just like any IP network, it is imperative that network managers stay on top and well informed. Be that as it may, considering the advantages of voice over the Internet, technologists are working diligently to improve quality and security. As Voice over IP technology becomes more mainstream, converged networks will continue to proliferate.


Related Tags: voip, business voip, voip for business, converged network

Author Michael Talbert is a certified systems engineer and web designer with over 7 years experience in the industry. For more information on Voice over IP Telephony, visit the website VoIP-Facts.net, or the VoIP Blog for up to date industry news and commentary.

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