VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), was first developed back in 1995 in Israel by hobbyists looking to communicate between PCs, (an unexpected early starter for a technology which is often deemed particularly modern). Computer telephony integration was at this time, at the forefront of many information technology based news articles and received many a review from business owners and professionals alike.
With the introduction of Voice over IP all those years ago, the aptitude to initiate phone calls across the World Wide Web with a specially designed IP phone was now possible. With VoIP, instead of traditional analogue wires transferring the signals of the phone call, your call is converted from analogue to a digital signal which is then converted into batches of data, (known as packets). These are then consecutively sent across the internet to the receiving device which will in turn, ‘un-pack’ the data batches back into analogue form. VoIP devices are usually hosted by your service provider, fulfilling a complete package.
After first being developed in Israel, VoIP became more prevalent when commercial developers began producing and advertising sound cards for insertion into PBX systems. At first, VoIP didn’t break into the mainstream as the systems were extremely poor quality with a lot of latency and jitter; calls were most often saturated with interference due to this new and not yet refined product.
VoIP providers often struggle to penetrate the telecoms market often, more likely than not, because of the simple fact that consumers fail to understand what the service is, what it provides and how it works. Another factor is of course, that business owners don’t want the added hassle of altering their phones and numbers. This however, needn’t be the case in this day and age. When VoIP was first introduced there was no method available for transferring numbers, but as the technologies have progressed this is now possible, as are many other features including the potential to be fully integrated into business hosted PBX networks…
A PBX (Private Branch Exchange), is a scaled business telecoms network that companies use to reduce costs. It is a solution which allows all employees to use the same line simultaneously. Capable of being fully integrated into PBX phones, VoIP is undoubtedly adaptable, but there is still much room for further adaption.
For success in the future, VoIP will be required to increasingly integrate with business and education software, so much so that it essentially becomes ‘undetected’. This will essentially change the way we view communications as we currently know them – instead of using voice to communicate with people, voice will be used to communicate with, and command software and applications in a modern world. Even the simplest of features such as call recording will become ‘the norm’.
By Sam Hurley
Sam is a Marketing Executive at Focus DC In Leicestershire. You can reach Sam on Twitter @fdcstudio