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 Internet
Telephony, or more appropriately IP
Telephony, has revolutionized the
way voice communications are
handled. Such technology has forced
many large telephone companies such
as AT&T, MCI WorldCom, and Sprint to
reduce their rates considerably. But
what is this technology and how can
your business benefit from it?
IP Telephony
or Voice Over IP (VoIP) is simply
the delivery of voice over data
based
networks such as Local Area Networks
(LAN), Wide Area Networks (WAN), or
even the Internet. Traditionally
these types of networks were only
used to deliver data based traffic
such as emails, web pages, and other
applications that are commonly
called Client/Server based
applications. These types of
applications require a common
language (Protocol) to
communicate with each other. The
most popular language for most
networks today is the communication protocol
used on the Internet which is
Transmission Control Protocol/Internet
Protocol or commonly called TCP/IP.
What makes TCP/IP a popular protocol
is its efficiency, flexibility, and expandability.
Such benefits have allowed
innovative companies such as Cisco
Networks to develop technologies
that enable TCP/IP based networks to
deliver high quality voice based
communications at very affordable
prices.
The high
quality of IP based telephony is due
to its digital nature. Phone
conversations are digitized from the
moment a user speaks into the
handset to the moment it is received
at the receiver. IP based
communications are also cheaper
because they occupy much less space
on the networks. Normally telephone
conversations use 64 kb/s (kilo bits
per second) to provide high quality
voice conversations; however IP
based traffic can compress the data
to the point that a typical high
quality conversation only requires
8kb/s of bandwidth. This means that
on a 64 kb/s line one could carry eight IP
based conversations. Also VoIP can
use the public Internet for its
media which, as you have guessed,
means free long distance calls.
But that
is not all; there are many more
benefits to IP based phones. One
benefit to
VoIP is its integration with the
computer. This integration is
commonly called CTI or Computer
Telephony Integration. The
integration means that companies can
integrate their phone systems with
all their customer care
applications. CTI can also replace
handsets with software that runs on
the user's pc. This type of software
is called soft phones and due to its
functionality benefits is becoming
very popular.
Imagine
an environment that when a call is
received, it is routed to
the appropriate department based on
the user's phone number. Once
routed, the proper agent will
be notified of the customer's
information such as their account
number, address, or any other data
that is stored in the database
regarding that customer before the
pc even indicates that a call is coming
through. Once the client's
information is retrieved , the agent
is notified of the call on their pc
and they can then start a
conversation with the customer. Once
the client's issue is resolved the conversation
along with all the session's data is
stored in the database for future
references. In instances where the
client has to be transferred to
other departments, such an
application will render the need for
the client to repeat the whole story
again to other agents unnecessary.
Although
IP Technology is here now, its price
may not be as attractive to smaller
businesses. In fact, this technology
is only used by larger
customer-support based companies.
There are, however, affordable
solutions that are not as extensive
but can still provide you with many
of the common functionalities.
If you
are interested in receiving more
information regarding IP Telephony
and what it can do for your business
please call one of our
representatives at DNA Micro Corp. |
