The telephony market is constantly being developed, companies such as Nortel, Siemens and BT spend Billions of pounds annually on Research and development. From the developments of Analogue systems, through the transition to ISDN digital systems, we have seen many changes and feature benefits. Digital technology transformed the industry and the communications world over 10 years ago with the introduction of ISDN- Integrated services Digital network. With ISDN came features that we all take for granted now such as Caller Line ID and DDI. Digital technology enabled massive progress in telephony, and began the convergence of voice and data. Digital telephone systems, lines and features will still be used fr many years to come, however the vast majority of future development will be in VOIP and SIP.
VOIP Over the past 10 years there have been many advances in this technology, but the focus and direction of the communications industry more recently has been Data traffic. All data uses a language called IP ( Internet Protocol), data is the future of communications across the world, and that is why the voice and data world are converging. This convergence has exploded over the last few years with the release and developments of VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol). This technology essentially converts voice language into data IP packets, they can then be sent across Data links all over the world and de converted at the other end back into voice. The result is VOIP, calls over data!
This has many uses, the major benefit is the ability to link multiple sites across the world over the companies existing or new WAN's and VPN's, for not only data but voice also, giving the effect of one large system across all the sites. One receptionist can answer and distribute calls all over the world, as though they are in the same office, she has full feature transparency between sites, and hence can see whether an extension is busy, even if they are in Australia. This has had major cost and efficiency benefits, and is very common across the world. Many homes now use VOIP as either home workers, or even PC to PC using Skype for example. VOIP has enabled a global communications programme for voip and data combined, reducing ongoing call costs, and increasing functionality.
SIP SIP or Session Initiation Protocol is commonly termed as 2nd generation IP. SIP is a development of VOIP, offering greater flexibility, functionality and further reducing costs. SIP will begin to replace ISDN in the same way that Digital replaced Analogue. This will take many years, as Analogue is still common n the market place even now, and will always have a sector in the market, the same can and will be said for Digital. SIP phones are in general cheaper to buy than VOIP phones, and you can mix and match manufacturers handsets and systems. SIP is the chosen Voice and Data protocol for the foreseeable future, and all development's will be in this field.
Commercial SIP - based products and services already include SIP phones, PC clients, SIP servers and IP telephony gateways, it has huge potential for use in 3G wireless networks, in mobile applications, and in providing the essential infastructure for Internet Telephony, including quality of service and security. Multimedia applications for SIP include spontaneous Video calling and Picture caller ID. SIP is gradually replacing the current H323 protocol of VOIP.
SIP is commonly being used in Soft IP Switches, using a Hosted IP switch, with all your calls going over your data network, this can offer cheaper calls, and strong functionality and features and will undoubtedly make very large inroads into traditional telephony over the next 5 - 10 years, however this technology is in its infant state.
