Voice Over Ip
Voice Over IpVoiceOverIp (VoIp) started in 1995 and has been the NextBigThing around the beginning of this 21st century. There exists a substantial document, a 2002 whitepaper prepared by Information Technology Support Centre at http://www.itsc.org/PDF/C2-1_VOIP.pdf.
Low-end solutions use VoIp gateways, whereas high-end offerings typically use use SIP or H.323 mechanisms, and are more robust and are typically router based. High-end solutions have provisions for continuation of analog services (e.g. interface to 911, fax etc) However high-end products require users to have different dialing habits for their additional functionalities.
Some high-end solutions raise concerns about vendor lock-in.
Low-end solutions have problems in enterprises using NAT and other security mechanisms.
In the end, both type of solutions have poor survivability in real world implementations.
-- from http://www.voip-news.com/art/5z.html
Technology benefits
Compared to PSTN phones, VoIp can be linked up with other internet-based services such as email and web. And in one instance some links was found to provide a favourable impact to sales.
Issues
Quality of service (bandwidth management for different traffic types), availability, choice of codec (voice quality as measured by "Mean Opinion Score" vs bandwidth consumption rate).
And security is harder, see below.
SecurityManagement aspects
Phone tapping is easy; the captured data traffic can be reconstructed using easily available software - see section 3.6.3 "secure internet communications" at http://www.itsc.org/PDF/S-3-1_Final.pdf.
IBM and CISCO has partnered to provide a "Secure Network Foundation Solution" which includes VoIp? component. See a glossy at http://www-1.ibm.com/businesscenter/cpe/download1/21335/SecureNetLeaveBhnd.pdf.
Reading material and other resources
Microsoft strategy for VoIp at http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/getstart/devplat/voip/voipmsstrat/default.aspx
Outlook 2003 at http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;964997629;fp;512;fpid;1370648978
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(last edited July 16, 2006)
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