VOIP

voice over internet protocol (VOIP

2006 Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP

I . The Emerging of VoIP Services

Before computerization era becomes a mandatory for business , employees used to enter and maintain information in books then they had to look up the required information and perform any calculations and designs . Such critical tasks are definitely prone to human errors since any employee could perform any miscalculation

Given the importance of information processing in enterprise , it is not surprising that business of any types was among the earliest adopters of automated information

processing technology . Historically , daily operation in commerce requires high accuracy and reliable process that only a small group of staff can handle such tasks . For this reason , the use of computers in commerce or trade in any industries has deliberately increased year by year since they are designed to handle sophisticated tasks like storing and retrieving large amounts of information and at making calculations and designs at highest accuracy

In addition to date storage function , information technology also deals with information processing , including data manipulation so that information can be sent through a network by occupying small amount of bandwidth

In voice communication , within the past decade , information technology has spawned new technique to convey voice traffic at much efficient bandwidth without sacrificing the quality . The so-called Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP ) becomes emerging technology that favors both individual and business users . At the earlier stage , VoIP grows from PC to PC phone from online services such as dialpad .com etc , which uses public IP , providing lower quality of voice due to delay and crosstalk to name a few . Later , VoIP employs managed IP standard , thus providing a better voice communication

Concerning the issue , this will discuss three steps of VoIP network design , as suggested by Dennis (2002 , for an organization that decides to deploy VoIP network to convey their needs of acceptable and affordable voice communications . The three basic network designs from Dennis (2002 ) are need analysis , technology design , and cost assessment

Need Analysis

Traditionally , most end users , individuals and business users , have extensive experiences with voice over PSTN that is quite affordable and has fast and reliable call setups and clear connections . For business organizations , there are many factors to take into account when they decide whether to use VoIP in their network they include bandwidth efficiency , cost efficient , and quality concerns

II .1 Bandwidth Efficiency

However , the development of internet protocol for data communications has opened new opportunity for voice to be transmitted over data network (IP network ) due to the obvious benefits that data communications provide to the users . Figure 1 shows the circuit-switched voice communication Figure 1 Circuit-Switched Voice Communications

Source : Telogy Networks . 2000 , `VoIP Implementation Challenges , San Jose

As shown in the figure , this clear connection has both advantages and disadvantages . The advantage is that the users have clear connections so that they can communicate clearly . The disadvantages are the users should pay quite expensive calls . In addition , the circuit switched network is...