Telecommunications in Business

Included in this memorandum is a basic overview of some telecommunication systems used in business and some that I also use in my home since I am not currently employed by any company. Of course telecommunications refer to all types of data transmission from voice, to video.

The first telecommunication type I would like to talk about is VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol. This is a type of hardware and software that allows people to use the internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls by sending voice data in packets using IP rather then my traditional means, like circuit transmissions. The good thing about VoIP is that the telephone calls over the internet do not incur a surcharge beyond what the user is paying for their internet access, just like using email. There are a lot of applications available, one that I have used previously at Remington College was NetMeeting, and there are others that come bundled with web browsers and then some that are stand alone products. I also have the service of Brighthouse Networks digital telephone which utilizes the VoIP technology. The phone line connects directly to my cable internet modem to provide me with telephone service. Unfortunately I experience more outages then normal and unlike a regular telephone like 911 is not available during cable and power outages. There are other companies like, Knology and Vonage that now provide digital phone service; some benefits over regular telephone service are unlimited local and long distance at a discounted monthly rate. And with Brighthouse since they are an internet and cable television provider they bundle there services at a discounted rate which I also take advantage of, and in the long run I pay a lot less then I would if I went to three separate companies and got my services that way.

Another service that was traditionally utilized through telephone likes is FoIP, or Fax over Internet Protocol. This technology enables the internet working of fax machines with a packet based network as well. This service works by the digital data from the fax machine being separated into packets for transmission, unlike a traditional fax where the fax data is converted into analog to be sent over the PSTN (Public Switch Telephone Network). The digital data actually requires less bandwidth then the analog data, so in the long run FoIP is more efficient then traditional analog faxing.

The last telecommunication service I will talk about is text