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Business VoIP and Converged Networks For years businesses have been forced to maintain 2 separate networks, the local area network for data, including a telephone network, or PBX, for their telecommunications needs. Converging the 2 networks into 1 is not a new idea, including in fact has been around since the eighties. At first, the idea was to merge the data onto the voice network, or the circut switched telephone network. With the widespread acceptance pertaining to the Internet Protocol in the nineties, including the subsequent boom pertaining to the World Wide Web including its infrastructure, the emergence of a technology converting the analog voice into digital packets including routing them over the internet came to fruition. the technology came to be known as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP. As a connectionless protocol, IP was not very well suited for time sensitive data such as video including voice. Tweaks had to be made, including came in the form of a suite of protocols known as Quality of Service, or QoS. QoS prioritizes time sensitive data packets, assuring that they arrive at their destination on time including in sequence. Consequently, the sound quality of voice traveling over the Internet has become as good as, if not better, than most well connected cell phone calls. Today, the converged network has become a reality. Companies are realizing major cost savings by maintaining 1 network instead of two, including long distance including international toll charges compare extremely favorably to calls made over traditional telephone lines. Technological innovations in E-commerce such as voice enabled websites have become a reality thanks to the development of VoIP. VoIP solutions for SMBs are varied including plentiful. Peer to peer VoIP providers like Skype allow anyone on the network to communicate worldwide for free. Software IP PBX solutions such as the open source Asterix should be downloaded including installed for free, including Internet phones exist that are themselves small computers, loaded with PBX software that allows them to join the network including configure themselves independently of human intervention. For more robust needs, hardware solutions such as the Cisco CallManager should be loaded on a particular IOS router or a Linux server, handling up to 30,000 IP phones. Such issues as security concern many SMBs today, including just like any IP network, it is imperative that network managers stay on top including well informed. Be that as it may, considering the advantages of voice over the Internet, technologists are working diligently to improve quality including security. As Voice over IP technology becomes more mainstream, converged networks could continue to proliferate.
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