VoIP stands for Voice over IP (Internet Protocol) and is also known as IP telephony. IP telephony allows telephone calls to be made over the internet instead of over the normal telephone network. The phones that are used to make such calls are just like ordinary handsets and calls from them can be made to any type of phone anywhere in the world – although you can also make calls without a handset via a desktop computer. The benefits of IP telephony range from cheaper maintenance to no requirement for special phones-only wiring to cheaper calls and a dramatic increase in flexibility and productivity.
You can click below at any time for more in depth detailed and technical information and we’ve also listed definitions and terminology in our Glossary for your reference. To continue learning about IP telephony view the remaining pages in this section: the next page is Benefits of VoIP?
+IP telephony allows telephone calls to be made over the internet via a physical VoIP-enabled phone, a computer ‘soft phone’ or from a suitably configured mobile phone or PDA device.
Traditionally, telephone calls are made over the public switched telephone network (PSTN) using circuit-switched technology. This means that when a call is made the line between the call instigator and call recipient is ‘open’: no one else can use the line while the call is in progress.
IP telephony works differently - instead of transmitting voice in an ‘analogue’ way, calls made using VoIP are digitised: ‘chopped up’ into data packets and sent over the digital voice-enabled network (such as a typical company network and internet connection). In many ways IP telephony works just like standard telephony. Telephone calls made via VoIP can be to any type of phone anywhere in the world: to another VoIP phone, a standard business or residential land line phone, a mobile phone or a PDA – locally, nationally and internationally.
However, unlike traditional telephony, IP telephony does not require dedicated ‘phone only’ wiring; instead, calls are made over the same internal network as email and file transfers: dedicated wiring is not required. In addition, IP telephony has a huge range of benefits including greater flexibility and often cheaper calls – and perhaps most important of all, enables companies to work in a new, exciting and revolutionary way.
‘VoIP’ and ‘IP Telephony’ are interchangeable terms – here at 500, we prefer to use the latter term. There are many definitions and terms associated with IP telephony; we will introduce them as required in the following pages, which are intended to give you a simple but informed overview.
