The Long History of VOIP Phones

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THE LONG HISTORY OF
VOIP PHONES ince the beginning of time,
communication has been the key element in the
success of any mission, home, business and other
human interactions. No doubt therefore, a number
of technological
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advancements in this space have been made. VoIP
phones meaning phones that use voice over
internet protocol technology, is one of those
advancements. This is without a doubt the most
celebrated telephony advancements today.
POTS Much earlier, in the twentieth century to be
precise businesses, campuses and homes used what
was known as POTS (Plain Old Telephone system).
This is basically the traditional
standard telephone technology that used the
public switched telephone network (PSTN). This
technology incorporated copper and fiber optic
wires to make a network. These wires crisscrossed
the globe and the cost incurred depended on the
length of the wire used. It was therefore very
expensive to make long distance calls. For a
business to have a phone system, it meant renting
the length of wire owned by the telephony
organization. Traditional telephony used circuit
switching meaning that for the entire duration of
the transmission a dedicated circuit was left
open. Packets This is an improvement on the
traditional telephony. You can say that it is
basically traditional telephony services only
this time operating via computer network through
the use of packet switched protocol. Packets
simply acts as electronic envelops into which
voice signals to be transmitted are put.
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Packets include not only the voce signal but also
the network addresses of both the sender and the
receiver. One major advantage of this over the
standard telephony services is that it has a
higher bandwidth meaning that it can transmit
more information per unit of time than the
former. IP Telephony IP technology was way more
superior to the two earlier telephony services.
It uses the internet protocol for its
transmission and this comes with quite a number
of additional capabilities. Initially, this
telephony service depended on internet but today
this is not absolutely necessary. VoIP phones are
interoperable meaning that they work perfectly
over all kinds of networks. Other advantage is
that they are very portable and can work with
different gargets, not just phones. The sound
quality is also very clear. When this technology
was first introduced into the market, it couldnt
compete with the traditional standard telephony
in terms of sound clarity. Overtime though, this
has been improved and now sound is transmitted
very clearly. Voice over Internet Protocol phones
is relatively more affordable. This is because
this technology eliminated the need for use of
copper and fiber optic wires. This therefore
means that even smaller organizations can now
afford a good telephone system unlike in the past
where a company had to incur the cost of renting
the wire depending on the length. There are quite
a number of VoIP phones available in the market
and these include wireless telephones, soft
phones and conference phones. Major advantage
of wireless phones is that they dont incorporate
wires that limit movement while making a call. A
soft phone is simply software installed to a
computer giving it phone capabilities. Conference
phones on the other hand are best where calls
need to be transmitted to multiple
participants. Depending on the organizations
need, all these telephones can be quite vital for
communication. Source http // thenetconnect.c
om/the - long -history-of-voip - phones/