Voip technology?

[nvfx-dragon]

Hi guys I’m doing a University assignment and need the feedback from Professionals and enthusiasts such as yourselves for the following question "Do you feel VOIP technology is the future of telephony?" if you could also give a brief outline as to why you came to your conclusions that would be brilliant as I have to review and conclude each response to put a for and against argument together

[IBM]

VOIP is integral to my company's tracking systems, offering scalability, flexibility, distribution speed at a substantially lower price point than that offered by traditional telephony providers. Easily integrated into digital solutions while retaining backward compatibility with hard wired landlines, the increasing reliability of the medium makes it the only choice for our telephony requirements.

.....

bloody hell. That doesn't half read like something you'd read on a Cisco advert.....

[nvfx-dragon]

thats a great answer mate and yeah id forward taht to the PR team see if they wanna use it lol!

[Lucio]

My suggestion is "As with all IP based technologies, plagarism is a big issue, and no more so in VoiP where calls can be duplicated and stored with ease"

[Funkstar]

I think VoIP is the future in some situations. Here's a good example of why VoIP is great: We are rebuilding and expanding our offices, so most office staff have moved to temporary offices off site. A few have remained in a portacabin in the warehouse. We are getting a new phone system in the new office and they have set it up in temporary offices in the mean time. This means that the 4 guys in the warhouse have their own phones, extensions and can use them over a dedicated ADSL line just like they were in an office down the corridor to everyone else. You couldn't do that with a regular phone system without huge cost and dedicated circuits. We can also set up remote offices anywhere and be on the internal extension list.

[kidzer]

^^ furthermore, you can take an X-Channel (where X = 1 -> 30) E1 circuit, for example, terminate it on a Router and then have the flexibility to do with it what you want, it is rather ace.

Got a bunch of spare DDI Numbers on Circuit X at Location Y, but are opening Location Z and don't want new voice circuits there...no worries! A few dial peers and a CME IOS (+ licensing!) later (plus the rest of the CME config, admittedly!) and those DDIs are ringing IP Phones in another location. The flexibility afforded is rather cool.

All that is from a Cisco perspective I must admit, Cisco stuff is pretty much all I do.

And I loves it >.<

[IBM]

My suggestion is "As with all IP based technologies, plagarism is a big issue, and no more so in VoiP where calls can be duplicated and stored with ease"

Seriously. I just spend all day worrying about my phone conversations being plagerised.

[peterb]

BT certainly think so, their 21C network is IP based.

[finlay666]

"Do you feel VOIP technology is the future of telephony?"

Yes

Everyone seems to love wireless, even if the quality isn't as good, it's convenience

[Mblaster]

To balance things out a bit, I'll add the downside that the lack of Quality of Service (QoS) built into IP means you don't get the same kind of consistency of quality that you do on a standard phone line. Although this can be avoided on purely internal IP telephony systems (e.g. not going over the internet).

That said, all our phones at work are IP phones, and this allows us to make/receive calls on our own extension from anywhere in the world (with an internet connection) by connecting into the work servers by VPN and making the call with VOIP software on our laptops.

Another major benefit of IP telephony is cheap calls abroad. The internet is indiscriminate in it's routing costs, so if you need to make calls between offices in different countries, you can route them over the internet and avoid the expensive foreign call charges.

[mcmiller]

Hi guys I’m doing a University assignment and need the feedback from Professionals and enthusiasts such as yourselves for the following question "Do you feel VOIP technology is the future of telephony?" if you could also give a brief outline as to why you came to your conclusions that would be brilliant as I have to review and conclude each response to put a for and against argument together

Maybe not the future for the general public but for companies most definitely

[badass]

Seriously. I just spend all day worrying about my phone conversations being plagerised.

/me waits for the penny to drop

[MadduckUK]

/me waits for the penny to drop

Not as simple as plagarism being spelled wrong is it? Is the whole sentence lifted from somewhere? is OP going to plagiarise us?

[nvfx-dragon]

really loving all these answers guys lots of depth and view points! cant wait to write this up ! i think given more solid rules for configuration or generic provider settings voip could really make a massive part of our future.

[Konan555]

In a word, yes. We've saved a fortune in cost and complilcation for multi-site companies using VoIP solutions.

Roll on IPV6! Should remove the headache of NAT traversal.

[TiG]

While the answers here are good, it doesn't scratch the surface of why data networks makes voice delivery easier.

I think the question is not as simple as is VOIP the future, for most companies VOIP is already here, virtually all new PBX's are based on these technologies.

From my perspective VOIP is already standard, whether that be SIP over UDP or TCP, H.323.

The next thing is about getting the same level of data and call tracking with the control cross organisation. Sip Layer 5 improvements brought in recently go some way to supporting this.

However if you want to ask the question about where VOIP is going you will see that question answered differently if you are a mobile network operator, or a fixed line service broadband provider, or someone like skype.

One rule as always doesn't fit all.

Thanks
Tony