Electro/Telecom Industry Trends
IP Telephony - Becoming a Reality
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The technical pieces are rapidly coming together to open a path for a vast range of traditional, cellular and Internet services revolving around Internet Protocol (IP) telephony. IP telephony, also known as Voice-over-IP (VoIP), combines different types of communications-such as data, voice and video-over a single packet cell-based infrastructure. Although there are still numerous standardization hurdles to overcome, combining multiple types of traffic on a single network connection has numerous advantages, including:
- Easier manageability by having one device for telephone calls, voice or email messaging, transmitting a fax and more
- Cost savings on long-distance calls and support
- Reduce the cost of voice and data networks, in particular for small and medium-sized businesses
- Increase in global connectivity to companies, individuals and educational and social institutions
- Ability to diversify and include video conferencing, application sharing and whiteboarding tools
Frost & Sullivan predicts that VoIP traffic will comprise roughly three-quarters of voice traffic worldwide by 2007. A unified network that integrates data, voice and video opens the door to incredible wealth of applications that will make people more productive and businesses more competitive by increasing efficiency, saving time and dramatically reducing costs.
Within the industry, there are regulatory agencies and Standards Developing Organizations (SDO) leading the way by defining the parameters and developing key regulations and specifications to make these technologies possible. These organizations include:
- European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI)
- Federal Communications Commission (FCC)
- Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE)
- Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF)
- International Multimedia Teleconferencing Consortium (IMTC)
- Internet Telephony Consortium (ITC)
- International Telecommunications Union (ITU)
- Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA)
- …and more!
To ensure interoperability between products of different vendors, SDO's have developed open systems and standards for signaling and voice-transporting protocols. The advantages of open systems design are overwhelming. Open competition, at all levels, should continue to lead to lower prices, enhanced features and continual innovation. Since system integrators need to excel in fewer aspects of system design, new generations of telephony systems will evolve faster to better incorporate Internet capability.