IP Telephony FAQs

What does IP telephony mean?
    IP (Internet Protocol) telephony, or called IPT, is a method for taking analog audio signals, like the kind you hear when you talk on the phone, and turning them into digital data that can be transmitted over the Internet.  In the company, the digitized telephone traffic between Company locations will be carried over our WAN and LANs instead of the Public Telephone Network or the Internet.

Will there be cost savings associated with IPT?
    Core infrastructure costs will actually rise due to shorter equipment life cycles, but there should be significant savings in costs incurred when moving, adding or changing a phone.  When traveling, SoftPhone users should also see savings over traditional calling card, International Direct Distance Dial (IDD) and cell phone rates.  We have a large up-front cost to establish a centralized IPT infrastructure; however the incremental cost to add the “next” phone is greatly reduced once the central infrastructure is in place.

What’s the difference between IP telephony and VoIP?
    VoIP stands for ‘Voice over Internet Protocol'.  VoIP is the digitization and packetization of live voice combined with the transport of those packets over a TCP/IP infrastructure, based on Internet-based standards.  VoIP was the predecessor to IP telephony and has been used for several years, often as a convenient way of avoiding long distance charges (toll bypass).  While VoIP and IPT are technically different, they are starting to be used interchangeably in conversation.

Is this like Skype?
    No.  Skype uses the public Internet to transport conversations.  No one can guarantee quality.  Company IP telephony will use company's robust data network on the company Intranet to transport conversations. More importantly, the company will use a technology called Quality of Service (QoS) to ensure that your voice conversation gets the highest priority as it goes through our network. One exception is when remote, a mobile user makes a call from the softphone on their laptop using VPN and an Internet DSL or broadband cable connection.  In this case, there is no QoS over the Internet, and quality is not guaranteed.

Do my calls travel over the Internet?
    No.  Your calls will travel over Company’s internal Intranet, which is much more secure and reliable than the Internet.