There’s a big debate going on about VoIP phone systems, not whether the technology can save you lots of money, provide lots of extra features and increase the productivity of your company, because we know it can do all of those thing, but whether VoIP technology was innovative thinking which revolutionised the communications industry, or just the logical next step in the evolution of communications.
The quick answer of course is a bit of both, but lets have a look at some of the parts which have been evolution and which have been innovation.
VoIP started out its existence in 1994 when it was invented by Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty and through their company VocalTec released the first commercial VoIP software in 1995. At this point however VoIP tended to be unreliable since the internet lacked the speed required to maintain clear vocals. In my opinion, this move, which went on to create its own market and redefine another one was a major innovation, the technology was already in existence however, so VoIP was just another way of using what was already in place. In this sense, it’s more evolutionary of the internet and telephone systems. In my opinion, I would say this was more evolution than innovation because it wouldn’t have been long before another company took advantage of the technology around them. (Though that’s easier to say in hindsight).
The problems of VoIP and the lack of the internet speed and reliability to maintain high call quality still followed VoIP into the early 21st century and to an extent, up to the modern day. Two innovations which helped this have been the packet priority for VoIP traffic and delay sensitive marking of packets. Packet priority is a great way of helping a VoIP connection, specifically when VoIP is used on a internet connection with other data traffic (such as web browsing and file transfers) by giving all of the VoIP data packets a higher priority so they get transferred first. Combining this with packet marking helps to reconstruct the voice data on the other end instead of transmitting it as and when it comes. This greatly helps to reduce the effects of latency on a phone call and can make the audio much clearer. These again I think are evolutionary developments to the technology since they’re fairly simple (though effective) solutions to evident problems.
Then there are the features offered by VoIP services, while it is true that hosted VoIP tends to offer features such as conference calling cheaper, these are all features which were previously available with larger PBX systems, so again simply an evolution of past telephone technology.
So overall, while the development of VoIP has been paved with innovation at every step in its way. I believe the technology as a whole was simply an evolution of pre-existing technology, though to give it its due, growing up in the shadow of two innovations as massive as the telephone and the internet is a daunting task and VoIP to date has certainly shown it is the worthy descendant of these technologies.
Thursday 27 October 2011
Friday 7 October 2011
Tips for getting voice over internet protocol
Obviously VoIP requires an internet connection, and if you want to be sure of good quality of service, you will probably need a fast one. When talking to service providers it can be incredibly beneficial to have particulars about your current connection, peak traffic values and such, as well as if it could be viable to run a single network for both data and voice at the same time.
On top of that, perhaps most notably, have a distinct understanding of what solutions you desire for your corporation. How many features you will need and how many additional features would be nice to have if the price is right. This can include things such as CRM integration, perhaps employing a single address book, or mobile twinning for desk phones to make sure you can be contacted wherever you go; a excellent tool for people who are out of office a lot.
It’s also worth asking suppliers if they’ll assess your existing equipment setup and see where exactly any troubles could happen in your network to stop issues well before they happen.
Once you have a good idea of what you need, you need to start evaluating the market place, which can be a discouraging task, there are many organizations supplying many diverse services at many prices, with many different levels of service quality. To cut the large volume of possible providers down for smaller organizations at least, until you start getting a large number of users, hosted VoIP providers are usually the best way to go. This fundamentally means all of the call handling and redirection is handled by the VoIP provider, and generally you will log in via a softphone on your computer or mobile.
There are several key merits of this for a smaller organization. The primary one is of course costs; smaller organizations often can’t manage the capital to invest in a big PBX system and setup, so having a solution which is paid for on a month-to-month schedule can be much more feasible. Also, the costs of sustaining your own VoIP service might simply not be worthwhile for a small business; where a large company can easily afford to hire their own technicians to apply the various updates, perform regular maintenance and also have a less expensive system than a hosted phone system, the same can not be said of most small organizations. In such cases, having a different business deal with all of the technological stuff, keep the system safe from hacking and such, it can be greatly beneficial.
Good things to ask the other suppliers you are reviewing include things such as how they deal with power blackouts, security measures, scalability, their uptime and following that of course do your own investigation on them, consumer reviews and such.
On top of that, perhaps most notably, have a distinct understanding of what solutions you desire for your corporation. How many features you will need and how many additional features would be nice to have if the price is right. This can include things such as CRM integration, perhaps employing a single address book, or mobile twinning for desk phones to make sure you can be contacted wherever you go; a excellent tool for people who are out of office a lot.
It’s also worth asking suppliers if they’ll assess your existing equipment setup and see where exactly any troubles could happen in your network to stop issues well before they happen.
Once you have a good idea of what you need, you need to start evaluating the market place, which can be a discouraging task, there are many organizations supplying many diverse services at many prices, with many different levels of service quality. To cut the large volume of possible providers down for smaller organizations at least, until you start getting a large number of users, hosted VoIP providers are usually the best way to go. This fundamentally means all of the call handling and redirection is handled by the VoIP provider, and generally you will log in via a softphone on your computer or mobile.
There are several key merits of this for a smaller organization. The primary one is of course costs; smaller organizations often can’t manage the capital to invest in a big PBX system and setup, so having a solution which is paid for on a month-to-month schedule can be much more feasible. Also, the costs of sustaining your own VoIP service might simply not be worthwhile for a small business; where a large company can easily afford to hire their own technicians to apply the various updates, perform regular maintenance and also have a less expensive system than a hosted phone system, the same can not be said of most small organizations. In such cases, having a different business deal with all of the technological stuff, keep the system safe from hacking and such, it can be greatly beneficial.
Good things to ask the other suppliers you are reviewing include things such as how they deal with power blackouts, security measures, scalability, their uptime and following that of course do your own investigation on them, consumer reviews and such.
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