Welcome To Our New IP Telephony Blog
If you've come here, you'll see the terms, "IP Telephony" and "VoIP" referred to almost constantly. As you heard in school, there are no stupid questions. For those of you who are a little rusty, I refer you to the definition of Voice over IP that you will encounter in Wikipedia, the Internet's most complete and authoritative free encyclopedia:IP Telephony, also called Internet telephony, is the technology that makes it possible to have a telephone conversation over the Internet or a dedicated Internet Protocol (IP) network instead of dedicated voice transmission lines. This allows the elimination of circuit switching and the associated waste of bandwidth. Instead, packet switching is used, where IP packets with voice data are sent over the network only when data needs to be sent, i.e. when a caller is talking.Its advantages over traditional telephony include:The protocols used to carry the signal over the IP network are commonly referred to as Voice over IP or VoIP protocols.The article correctly asserts that IP telephony's advantages include Lower costs per call, especially for long-distance calls;Lower infrastructure costs: once IP infrastructure is installed, no or little additional telephony infrastructure is needed. New advanced features. Voice over IP traffic does not necessarily have to travel over the public Internet; it may also be deployed on private IP networks.Those are some of the reasons why The Yankee Group notes that IP telephony services have approximately one million U.S. subscribers - an eight-fold increase from a year ago.So who am I to pass judgment? I built my first radio when I was eight, and had my first article published shortly thereafter. I've been fascinated with writing about technology ever since. I am Features Editor of VON (Voice Over Internet) magazine, former contributing editor at the now-defunct Global Telephony magazine, and just this year, have worked on two major wireless technology and market analysis papers for two leading research firms. The opportunity to write about IP Telephony energizes me continually, as I hope reading and reacting to this blog, does for you. Point, click, ask questions, post feedback, feed me scoops publicly or anonymously, twitch and moan if you must. This place is not only a forum for my thoughts, but for yours.