12/15, 2009
Is An IP Phone A Good Alternative To A Normal Phone?
Telephone was a big invention that not only has brought great revolution in our lives but has also opened vast avenues and horizons to the telecommunication world. This technology bridged distances and transformed this world into a global village. The communication has become very easy, which has helped the trade and businesses to grow. Today, there is no city in the world where we do not find a telecommunication [...]
Telephone was a big invention that not only has brought great revolution in our lives but has also opened vast avenues and horizons to the telecommunication world. This technology bridged distances and transformed this world into a global village. The communication has become very easy, which has helped the trade and businesses to grow. Today, there is no city in the world where we do not find a telecommunication company.
Internet took over the corporate world and our everyday lives by a storm. Internet protocol, also known as IP, became the basis of transfer of information worldwide. IP phones are a relatively innovation in the IT world. They work very much like ordinary phones, but they use an IP network like internet, in order to make calls. They employ voice over IP technology, instead of the typical PSTN system. IP phones can also be used within an intranet of a company or organisation.
There are lot of difference between an IP phone and normal phone. The working of both looks like the same, but IP phone has added advantages over the normal phones. IP phones are getting more and more popular in the corporate world as it help companies in many ways. Calls on IP phones are cheaper than on normal phones, and also, you have luxury to connect to your friends, family members and clients through videoconferencing.
We all use normal phones to call our friends and family members. To make a call, we have to remember the name and telephone number of the person but on IP phones, one can develop caller IDs; simply type the ID and make a call. For business firms, this is quiet a time-saving option as they have a long list of customers and suppliers, which is difficult to maintain otherwise.
Another very interesting feature of IP phones is their ability to store personal and network-based directories in their IP phone system. IP phone also offer features like: call transfer, teleconferencing, call waiting etc. The same features are present in normal phones, but these features in normal phones are relatively costly than in IP phones.
As IP phone is connected to internet to make calls, so using services like horoscopes, weather forecast, checking foreign currency rates, and TV channel news is very easy. IP phones do offer great advantages, but still they have some limitations and disadvantages associated with them.
IP phones have to convert analogue signals to digital signals to transfer data through broadband medium; so, these phones cannot work without electric power. Similarly, if the signals are dropped, the voice quality gets affected, and if you are using these phones at the corporate level, you might have to bear heavy losses. So, for such situations, a normal phone should be available.
The internet connections, where the latency period is high, the IP phones do not work well. This mostly happens in residential areas as they are situated far away from the telephone exchange, and the speed issue creates problems for them. This is the reason why most people still have normal phones installed in residential areas.
Jeremy Sandcastle is a technology consultant. Buy variety of Cisco IP Phones and get huge discounts on the seasonal sale.