REPLACING TRADITIONAL TELEPHONY WITH VOIP

Abstract

Voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) is an emerging technology that is beginning to replace traditional telephone services because it is much more cost effective for the consumer and businesses. Long distance charges are relatively a thing of the past, and in general there are more feature-rich services available over a VoIP line than traditional phone services. VoIP provides phone services without utilizing the expensive infrastructure of the traditional telephone company. VoIP is an enhancement to our traditional ways of communicating via the telephone; users can combine voice and video in a single call, share data, and accomplish many other tasks that are impossible over traditional phone lines. Businesses can utilize Session Initiated Protocol (SIP) over VoIP to eliminate the need for large PTSN trunk lines and wasted space. VoIP is the future and its features will eventually far exceed traditional landline phone services. But with any new technology there are also disadvantages in utilizing leading edge services such as VoIP. Some disadvantages include dropped calls, poor voice quality, or even cost a business more than traditional systems in regards to outages and lost production time. If the Internet connection goes down, so does your phone access. Access to 911 emergency services may not function correctly at critical times.