VoIP and IP telephones are becoming more and more popular as internet bandwidth costs decrease. POTs or plain old telephone service is quickly becoming a thing of the past. Internet Protocol (IP) is more than just a way to transport data, it can also be a vital tool to streamline your business.
What is VoIP
We break a few of the cumbersome telephone acronyms:
- VoIP refers to a way to carry phone calls over an IP data network, whether on the Internet or your own internal network. It will help reduce expenses because telephone calls travel over the data network rather than the phone company’s network.
- IP telephony encompasses the full suite of VoIP enabled services including the interconnection of phones for communications; related services such as billing and dialing plans; and basic features such as conferencing, transfer, forward, and hold. These services might previously have been provided by a PBX. On a JMF IP-PBX practically all the features that you would have previously seen line item charges are included as standard features.
- IP communications includes business applications that enhance communications to enable features such as unified messaging, integrated contact centers, and rich-media conferencing with voice, data, and video.
- Unified communications takes IP communications a step further by using such technologies as Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and presence along with mobility solutions to unify and simply all forms of communications, independent of location, time, or device.
What is VoIP: Service Quality?
IP phone calling 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 that voice quality is as good as, if not better than, the services they would have previously experienced with their traditional phone system.