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Multi-Site Networks – IP telephone
systems can be networked together seamlessly, providing limitless
possibilities for your communications. Networking systems in this manner
creates one virtual system.
Ever wish it could be simpler — not to
mention cheaper — for the people at your various locations to talk to
each other? Ever wished also that this could occur without your people
losing the special features that your phone system has?
Wish no more. VoIP technology helps you
unite your team members, whether they’re a street, a city or a country
apart.
VoIP uses your WAN or the Internet to join
together compatible phone systems into one interconnected system.
For just one example: let’s say you want
to call an extension at another one of your locations. Up to now, you’d
have had to make a regular phone call. With VoIP you can dial a remote
extension just as you would if it were right down the hall, instead of
miles away — perhaps even thousands of miles away.
VOIP Technology
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.
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