Telecoms are a technology that has been advanced with the times. From the really expensive PBX systems seen in larger corporations in the later half of the 20th century, to the present day where many small corporations have PBX systems. These systems still have the majority of the capabilities of the pricey solutions at a fraction of the cost.
This progress on it’s own has spread advanced telecoms into the business sector greatly since the more affordable rates have allowed much smaller firms and businesses to make use of it. Another big development came along in the form of VoIP phone systems; by making use of the internet and the cheapness of sending speech by way of digital in place of analogue the expense of telephony once again took a sizeable drop.
This gave rise to hosted phone systems, this is essentially where the bulk of the PBX machines are managed, up-graded and brought up to date by a service provider supplying the PBX functions as a service plan to a company. Companies shelling out for this service can then access the VoIP connection, normally via a softphone on a computer, though it’s possible to have a complete phone network and simply use the VoIP as the means to connect calls. In the second scenario, there is very little difference from a normal telephone system from a user perspective.
This has unlocked the doorway for mobile VoIP, where rather than using a computer to connect to the PBX server, you connect with a program on a smartphone. Since mobile charges are usually pricey, by using a mobile VoIP connection while connected to a wifi, you are able to just connect through VoIP and it will cost the same as if you were sitting in the office. This is even more impressive when coupled with the fact, that due to the geo-dispersed nature of the internet, the costs would be the same wherever on the globe you are as long as you have a pretty good net connection. Suddenly VoIP becomes a fantastic tool for any business who has people on the move, especially internationally.
Such things are by no means limited to organizations however, mobile phone networks already have started contemplating deals with hosted VoIP companies since free programs for example Skype is already obtainable on phones to reduce the prices of your calls. This rise in technology could result in a complete renovation of how we look at mobile phone contracts. It’s predicted that by 2015, the mobile VoIP market will be a 20 billion dollar industry, so it’ll be intriguing to see how matters turn out.
