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Internet telephony

A revolution in telephony

What is it?

IP Telephony is a group of technologies which transmit voice and fax over a computer network, instead of through the traditional phone system.

The process of transforming these signals into Internet Protocol (IP)—and back—is called Voice over IP (VoiP).

IP Telephony is revolutionising business communication by eliminating call charges and enabling tight integration with other business systems. This trend is set to accelerate.

A transformation is taking place in the way the humble telephone operates—but few businesses are aware of this huge change.

A properly designed IP telephony solution offers comparable voice quality to a conventional switched circuit telephone service. However, a significant advantage is that by sending voice as data packets over the Internet, all call charges are eliminated.

In the next few years, call charges for voice calls (whether local, national or international) are likely to disappear as all voice traffic migrates to IP telephony. The business implications resulting from this are significant, for example:

  • Organisations making use of small branch offices or home workers no longer need to pay call charges for what may be regarded as ‘internal’ telephone calls
  • The cost of telephone calls will no longer be a constraint for businesses engaged in direct marketing
  • The cost of phone calls to other countries will be reduced dramatically
  • The elimination of metered call charges for international calls may encourage the continuing displacement of UK jobs to other countries

Businesses should be considering the impact of IP telephony on their operations—many organisations are already making substantial cost savings through the deployment of IP telephony.

How Cygnet can help

In conjunction with our technology partners, we offer a range of IP telephony solutions to meet the needs of any organisation, large or small. The elimination of call charges can provide a healthy return on investment particularly in the following situations:

  • Home-based workforce in frequent contact with the office
  • Personnel working out of multiple branch offices
  • Offices based in different countries

Where calls via the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) cannot be avoided, we are able to offer highly competitive charge rates for local, national and international calls.

Where an organisation has invested in a ‘conventional’ telephone system (PBX), it is usually possible to add an IP telephony capability through the use of an ‘IP telephony gateway’. C