Why VoIP?

The number one reason to switch to VoIP technology for telephone service is cost reduction. From that base, VoIP is able to provide some compelling features which makes switching even more attractive.

Eliminating Phone Lines

With VoIP service, you can cancel your traditional phone service through your local telephone company and place all of your telephone calls over your broadband Interner connection.

For a residential customer, this will save around $40 a month. For business customers, the savings can be thousands of dollars a month.

Eliminating Long Distance Charges

VoIP technology can also save money on long-distance charges. Most residential and business telephone customers pay per-minute fees for long-disatance telephone calls. VoIP can reduce or eliminate those long-distance fees.

This saving is especially valuable with International calls, where per-minute charges for traditional telephone calls can be very expensive.

Number Portability

With VoIP service, you can take your phone number anywhere you go, easily. If you have a Chicago number and you move to New York, you can keep your Chicago number. This is very convenient for friends and family to keep in contact with you wherever you go.

Computer Telephony Integration (CTI)

VoIP service providers are designing and implementing new features which implement Computer Telephony Integration (CTI).

For example, VoIP customers may be able to receive their voice messages in e-mail as .WAV file attachments. This can make managing voice mail messages much easier and more powerful, because it enables recipients to archive voicemails or forward them to anyone with an email address.

Books on VoIP

VoIP Fundamentals	The authors of VoIP Fundamentals, three packet-voice specialists at Cisco Systems, initiate their exploration of next-generation technologies for supporting conversations across large distances: the switched telephone network as implemented on large (intercontinental) and small (building and enterprise) scales. They then point out problems with the old way of doing things and illuminate the standards and regulatory conditions that have made Internet telephony attractive. Signaling System 7 (SS7) gets particularly insightful coverage, with ample graphical support for the clear, fact-rich, example-laden prose. The authors do a great service for readers by breaking packet telephony into its component technologies and explaining each one carefully. Coverage of the various protocols that enable voice over IP, particularly H.323 and Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), is simultaneously clear and deep. The same goes for media gateway protocols and various schemes for translating sounds into digital signals and back again, while retaining maximum clarity. There's even some practical material; concluding chapters diagram Cisco router configurations for voice traffic and flesh out solutions with case studies. You'll like this book if you need to implement a VoIP system and know more about IP than you do about traditional voice telecommunications. The patient and detailed explanations of traditional telephony concepts and voice over IP protocols will mesh nicely with your existing data communications knowledge, enabling you to make wise design and product decisions.

Switching to VoIP	More and more businesses today receive their telephone service through the Internet instead of from the local telephone company lines. Many businesses are also using their internal local and wide-area network infrastructure to replace legacy enterprise telephone networks. This migration to a single network carrying voice and data is called convergence, and it's revolutionizing the world of telecommunications by slashing costs and empowering users. The technology of families driving this convergence is called Voice over IP (VoIP). VoIP has advanced Internet-based telephony to a viable solution, piquing the interest of companies small and large. The primary reason for migrating to VoIP is cost, as it equalizes the costs of long distance calls, local calls, and e-mails to fractions of a penny per use. But the real enterprise turn-on is how VoIP empowers businesses to mold and customize telecom and datacom solutions using a single, cohesive networking platform. These business drivers are so compelling that legacy telephony is going the way of the dinosaur, yielding to VoIP as the dominant enterprise communications paradigm. Developed from real-world experience by a senior developer, O'Reilly's Switching to VoIP provides solutions for the most common VoIP migration challenges. So if you're a network professional who is migrating from a traditional telephony system to a modern, feature-rich network, this book is a must-have. You'll discover the strengths and weaknesses of circuit-switched and packet-switched networks, how VoIP systems impact network infrastructure, as well as solutions for common challenges involved with IP voice migrations.

VoIP For Dummies	Put your telephone system on your computer network and see the savings See how to get started with VoIP, how it works, and why it saves you money VoIP is techspeak for "voice over Internet protocol," but it could spell "saving big bucks" for your business! Here's where to get the scoop in plain English. Find out how VoIP can save you money, how voice communication travels online, and how to choose the best way to integrate your telephone system with your network at home or at the office. Discover how to: Use VoIP for your business or home telephone service Choose the best network type Set up VoIP on a wireless network Understand transports and services Demonstrate VoIP's advantages to management

VoIP Crash Course	Recent advances in Voice over IP (VoIP) technology have made it the solution of choice for voice service because of its low cost and increased reliability. VoIP Crash Course offers practical technology coverage, while discussing the business, strategic and competitive implications of VoIP deployment in corporations. The book also covers the challenges faced by service providers as they evolve to an IP infrastructure while continuing to operate the PSTN.