VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is one of the newest technologies that businesses are using to connect their telephone systems. As data traffic has continued to increase at a much faster pace than voice (telephone) traffic, there has been growing interest in consolidating voice and data networks.

Voice services over data networks

While previous focus has been on transporting data over voice networks and using modems to convert digital data to analog phone signals, the current trend is to provide voice services over data networks (VoIP). Most business phone manufacturers (such as Alcatel, Cisco, Siemens, Nortel Networks or NEC) are freezing further development of the TDM technology (Time Division Multiplexing) that traditional phone systems use and they are creating migration strategies to help their customers move from traditional phone systems to VoIP.

These networks (VoIP) are optimized for carrying data and are an important step in phasing out the existing voice networks. That's why the manufacturers aren't significantly upgrading their traditional TDM architectures, thus increasing demand for VoIP by companies that want new or upgraded service.

VoIP systems offer a multitude of advantages

For any business with significant telephony needs, VoIP systems can offer a multitude of advantages. When you're deciding whether to implement VoIP, you should keep in mind not only the advantages but also the considerations associated with VoIP. You should also be aware of the various types of VoIP solutions available.

VoIP services aim to provide a superior cost/benefit to the public switched telephone network. For example, VoIP technology utilizes relatively inexpensive bandwidth to transport phone calls over IP networks. Therefore, VoIP can potentially offer significant savings on long distance and international calling.

Faxes over VoIP networks

Sending faxes over VoIP networks is another promising application of the technology. In addition, VoIP leverages the convergence of voice and data networks by offering new types of integrated voice/data applications not available using public switched telephone networks. For example, integrated messaging, which allows users to retrieve or leave voice mail over the Internet is one possible application of VoIP technology.

Teleconferencing over the Internet

Another possible application can be multimedia teleconferencing over the Internet, which would allow people to communicate in real time with audio and video while possibly manipulating data such as documents and presentations.

The future of VoIP

The VoIP future prediction is quite impressive. It has been estimated that there will be 7 million VoIP phones in circulation by 2007. This is quite a number if you know that Cisco Systems, for example, shipped 1 million IP phones between 1999 and 2002. According to Cisco, it shipped another million between August 2002 and July 2003. So it seems that VoIP is growing fast and will be the main technology for the future.