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VoIP Security in Small Businesses
Voice over IP (VoIP) is a method of transmitting Voice signals over an IP
network, also known as a packet network, instead of the Telephone Company’s
switched network. It is becoming more and more prevalent in the world
because vendors have mature products and increased capabilities and
customers are trying to reduce costs.
With the introduction and boom of the
Internet, Small Businesses realized that they had an opportunity to compete on a
more even keel with large enterprises, because with the Internet you can reach
the same audience that previously could only be reached by national TV
commercials at extreme high costs.
This revolution is now happening again in the Phone industry that allows a Small
Business to appear larger and can have presence in different geographical
locations without incurring in long distance charges by using the Internet to
access remote home workers and/or branch offices without the expensive
Branch Office costs. Operational costs can be better controlled and cheaper
labor costs can be tapped by using VoIP and the Internet. Some of the features
of VoIP are:
1) IP Phones or Internet telephones
2) Inter-office trunking over the corporate Intranet or Internet
3) Remote access from branch or home offices to both the voice and data networks via the Internet
4) Internet call center access
Internet aware telephones have an Ethernet NIC (Network Interface Card)
incorporated and come in several flavors, from specific hard IP phones to softphones
or PC-phones. Soft or PC phones are a combination of software and the
hardware of a PC. It is not necessary anymore to have a dedicated phone line or
a telephone set, you just need an Internet connection fast enough to make a
VoIP call. Popular software programs like Messenger from Yahoo and Microsoft
are a couple that can make telephone calls from your PC using a microphone
and speakers/headsets plugged into an Audio Card.
The first implementations of VoIP have been using the inter-office Data circuits to
carry the phone traffic, thus reducing long distance charges especially for
offshore remote sites. In this situation a company already had a leased line to
be used for their Data network or had spare capacity.
Even before the Internet exploded, large Corporations were using Time Division Multiplexing to combine
Voice and Data over the same circuit, although the voice quality was poor. The
further away the remote site is the more savings will be realized.
With the Internet and applications rewritten to be accessed via a browser allow
people in customer service and other positions to work from home, thus creating
the SOHO (Small Office Home Office) industry. Company customers need to
contact the employees without giving out new phone numbers and confusing the
customer, making the relationship totally transparent. Use of VoIP allows these
employees to use a single broadband Internet connection to be used for Data
and Voice access to their company resources.
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