IP Telephony

Technological innovation is changing the way we communicate. This time it is coming in the form of changing the way telephone calls are transmitted. It brings with it several new capabilities that change the meaning of the phrase telephone call through the use of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP). Basically, VoIP means “voice transmitted over a packet data network.” VoIP is often referred to as IP Telephony because it uses the IP protocols to make possible enhanced voice communications throughout the world, wherever IP connections have been delivered. IP Telephony unites a company’s many locations—including mobile workers— into a single converged communications network. Telephony calls using VoIP go above and beyond what’s been possible in the past. When it comes to placing telephone calls, VoIP provides a range of support services and features unequalled in the world of telephony, but above all deliver them at low cost.

How Does VoIP Work?

Voice over Internet Protocol means basically what the acronym states: Voice travels over an Internet Protocol. Internet Protocol refers to the type of rules that the network uses to send and receive signals. IP Telephony works by converting voice communications into data packets. Conveniently, it runs on the popular Ethernet LAN (local area network) technology, which currently supports over 96 percent of the worlds companies’ LANs.

Circuit-switched or Time-Division Multiplexed Telephony

Before digital networking with the Internet took off, everyone had to use the “Plain Old Telephone Services” (POTS). These run over a network called the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). The PSTN has been around since the telephone was invented in either analog or digital form using circuit switched technology where the telephone call gets exclusive bi-directional use of a wire – or circuit – while the call is in progress. Because the circuit is exclusive to each conversation, PSTN and private branch exchanges (PBXs) must be sized to cope with peak demand and have enough circuits available for all expected conversations. This is not a flexible approach and results in a lot of infrastructure investment that the telephone companies need to recoup, via the cost of access charges and calls. The Internet has changed this – where data services have driven down access charges and allowed voice to “travel for free” over a multipurpose data network.

Packet-Switched Telephony

Unlike circuit-switched connections, which always require use of dedicated bi-directional circuit for the duration of a call, VoIP technology has enabled telephony and other new and novel features and services to run over fixed and wireless networks including private local area networks. These newer network types use packet-switched protocols. Packet-switched VoIP puts voice signals into packets. Along with the voice signals, VoIP packets include both the sender’s and receiver’s network addresses. VoIP packets can traverse any VoIP-compatible network. Along the way, they can choose alternate, shared paths because the destination address is included in the packet. The routing of the packets is not dependent on any particular network route which means the network provides can provide a reliable service at a fraction of the cost of circuit switched providers.

What Advantage Does IP Office Have?

IP Office can provide support of PSTN, POTs, digital time division multiplexed phones AND digital IP phones all on the same system. This means you don’t have to abandon the past to embrace the future, IP Office allows all the technologies to co-exist. IP Office connects to the PSTN and to IP trunks (the VoIP equivalent) so providing a “Hybrid” PBX function – where both legacy and future technologies can be used together to minimize operating costs and offer optimize business communications through both voice and data.

IP Office has digital telephones built on both TDM and IP technology that provide the same user interface offering a flexible choice of solution that can mix, for example TDM phones in the office and IP phones at a remote site of at home. With the choice of IP phones including real and virtual (software) phones, IP Office can take communications to a new level.

Buying IP Office allows you choice – you can use the pure POTs or the pure VoIP capabilities of IP Office, or use both at the same time to allow seamless technology transition of your business without the disruption of having to choose between them now.

IP Office Turns VoIP into IP Telephony

In order to make use of VoIP, IP Office uses signaling protocols called H.323 right now, and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) which allow IP Office to establish end-to-end connections for the voice path through the IP network. It ensures each end of the connection is able to transmit and receive voice and provides the network addressing for end to end packet transmission. IP Office also allows for connecting between the different technologies by translating the signals they use, for example an analog phone may wish to connect to a VoIP destination. This requires both the signaling and voice transmission to be translated – IP Office does this easily as it contains technology elements called gateways and gatekeepers that enable translations to happen.

With a conventional telephone system you plug your analog or digital TDM telephone into an extension socket connected to your PBX or Key System. With IP Telephony you connect your digital IP telephone to your IP PBX via the LAN. There are two basic types of IP phones:

IP telephony has the advantage of allowing extensions to be deployed both locally and remotely through the use of IP routing and IP VPN services.

Gateways, Gatekeepers and H.323 - Technology Overview

IP Office uses the H.323 signaling protocol which has the following architectural components

These elements are grouped together in what is known as an H.323 zone (a zone is analogous to a PABX). Each zone has a single Gatekeeper that can be considered as the brains of the system dealing with call distribution, call control and the management of resources. On power-up, IP telephones, Gateways and MCU make registration requests to a Gatekeeper which then authenticates (accepts or rejects) their request to become a member of the zone. Once accepted, a telephone wishing to make a call sends a call set-up message to the Gatekeeper which then determines how to route the call and will then send an alert to the called telephone, or if the call is to a non-H.323 telephone establish the call via a Gateway within the zone.

The design of IP Telephony systems has been driven by open standards. Digital IP Phones, Gateways and Gatekeepers all support the H.323 standard and it is this that allows devices from different manufacturers to work together. IP Office has an optional integral Gateway (Voice Compression Modules) and Gatekeeper functionality required to provide a fully functional IP Telephony solution.