IP telephony is telephone communication over the Internet, and not through conventional telephone networks. This type of telephony became possible as soon as the web of the Internet became comparable and even larger than the web of telephone lines that entangled the Earth long before the Internet.

The difference between IP telephony and analog telephony is the absence of a traditional cable and telephone set. True, there are options for IP telephony that are outwardly indistinguishable from regular telephone communication, with the usual devices and wires. Communication is carried out through devices with direct access to the Internet. This can be not only computers, but also tablets or mobile devices. An audio headset is also required if the computer does not have speakers and a microphone.

The main advantage is the minimum cost of operation, the cost of paying for calls, in comparison with analog telephony or cellular communication.

This telephony is especially popular in offices, opening up opportunities for significant savings. After all, office workers do nothing but call the company’s clients, contractors, and for other reasons.

It is important that communication costs are reduced regardless of which region of the country or other state the connection is made with, because for the Internet, unlike regular telephone communications, there are no state and national borders. Simplicity of configuration and a sufficient level of security makes it possible for IP telephony to compete adequately with analog telephony, gradually displacing it for corporate needs.

At the household level, IP telephony was once quite widespread in the form of cards for long-distance and international communications.

Cardtel card for calling from a landline phone via IP telephony

Having bought such a card for relatively little money, from home regular phone access to the servers of the company providing access to IP telephony was opened. The numbers for dialing to the servers were published on the card, and then, according to the usual rules for dialing a long-distance or international number, it was possible to call another subscriber, but via the Internet, and not via a telephone line. And the telephone line was used in this case at the cheapest rate: in the section between the phones of speaking subscribers and servers located in the same cities and countries to provide IP telephony.

Basic principles of how IP telephony works

When making a call, the voice signal coming from the subscriber is compressed and converted into a data packet sent via IP networks. Once at the recipient's address, the transmitted information is decoded back, acquiring the format of a familiar voice signal. All this happens in a matter of seconds, thanks to which information is transmitted in real time without loss of broadcast quality.

Contribute to this positive result protocols that act as a kind of encrypted language that unites subscribers and allows them to transfer data to each other. IP telephony is implemented on the basis of several of the most popular types of protocols.

Connecting and setting up IP telephony

To use the technology, you also need the appropriate equipment: routers, routers, servers, etc.

A software connection to IP telephony involves installing, on a laptop or gadget, an appropriate application that supports communication via a protocol that ensures the operation of IP telephony.

Software Most of it is free. To use it, you need an account in the application, into which the data required for operation is entered. A set of basic functions is installed by default; it is possible to expand them and make adjustments to the settings.

The history of IP telephony

Audio and video files, text messages It became possible to transmit over the Internet via ISDN. But this program did not find a response, since it worked very slowly and until 1995, innovative developments were not carried out in this direction.

Then the first example of Internet telephony from the Israeli company VocalTec appeared. But it worked one-way, on the principle of walkie-talkies, requiring identical software from the users between whom communication was carried out. It was also quite common at that time for data to be lost during transmission, mainly due to the low speed of the Internet at that time.

Towards modern achievements of IP telephony

Until 1996, IP telephony developed on the principle of transferring information from computer to computer using communicator programs. But in 1997, the integration of telephone networks with the so-called “packet” networks, in fact with the Internet networks, took place, which became possible thanks to the adoption of the standard H323 data transfer protocol.

Based on this protocol, the first phones began to work, equipped with a special connector for connecting to a data network and requiring not only a telephone socket, but also a separate port. When the switch was overloaded, it took time to rebuild it, which led to a long-term loss of interest in this area.

Changes occurred in 2002, when, with the development of the popularity of the new SIP protocol, which appeared back in 1999, packet telephony began to be actively implemented. After another 3 years, with the help of a new VoIP router, it became possible to operate telephony without turning on the computer at all.

Since then, the popularity of IP telephony has been constantly growing. For ordinary users, it is not of fundamental importance what protocols are used and how they work. Cleanliness of communication is much more important to them, additional features and low tariffs.

Advantages of IP telephony

The main one is the ability to save communication costs, which is especially important when using long-distance and international calls. Also worth noting as advantages:

• Accessibility and mobility,

since numbers in IP telephony are not tied to a specific location, to a specific cable, to a specific connector.

This essentially virtual number can be accessed regardless of the geography of its location; all you need is high-speed Internet access. It turns out some kind of analogue mobile communications, only instead of accessing mobile networks Internet access required.

• High potential,

since the formation of new IP networks is carried out depending on the needs of users and it is possible to quickly expand configurations with the introduction of new services.

• Privacy and Security.

Thanks to encrypted communication channels, access to information to third parties is prohibited, unlike the old familiar telephone networks, to which anyone can connect anywhere where the cable runs.

• Wide range of possibilities,

Using IP telephony – optimal solution for offices, enterprises and organizations precisely thanks to the last point about opportunities.

• Multichannel number functions,
• forwarding of incoming calls,
• voice mail,
• virtual fax and
• blacklisting service

allow you to get the most out of your connection without making any effort.

Most IP telephony services are included in basic package and are used after paying for the provider’s services for such communication. It is possible to increase the number of rooms beyond the original tariff plan, but in this case additional costs will be required.

About the cost of IP telephony

When using VOIP telephony, you can clearly see the dramatic difference in prices compared to analog communications. Within the network, calls are not charged, that is, subscribers using the services of one IP telephony provider communicate via software or hardware VOIP phones, saving money.

Since traffic on the Internet is not geographically referenced, the distance between the region of sending and the region of receiving information also does not play a role, unlike the usual telephone communication, which works on the principle “the further, the more expensive.” There is no additional charge for sending traffic in any direction.

When calling mobile or landline phones abroad or to other regions, the cost is also an order of magnitude lower than on an analog network. There are no subscriber line fees either, but it’s true that instead you have to pay for using the Internet according to tariffs.

The cost of calls to mobile and landline phones depends on the chosen direction and starts from several tens of kopecks per minute. The specific figure is related to the cost of services of a provider that supports IP telephony. The company involved in setting up and connecting such communications will help you choose the optimal package based on the customer’s needs. A combination of services from several providers is possible, which is guaranteed to lead to a reduction in bills for communication services.

IP telephony competitor: Skype

Applications for maintaining telephone and video communications, for example, well, compete quite successfully with IP telephony. Similar applications for computers and mobile devices They allow voice and video communication between subscribers also via the Internet, and also have attractive tariffs.

By the way, many functions of such applications are generally free. Users only need to pay for Internet traffic, nothing more. For example, Skype calls between two subscribers who have the Skype application installed on their computers are free.

And even group audio and Skype between several Skype subscribers can be free. It is also possible to transmit visual information by “sharing” (organizing collective viewing) one of the computer screens connected to the Skype conference.

IP telephony competitors: mobile operators

In addition, mobile operators do not stand still. They offer their to corporative clients so-called virtual telephony. Its essence is that each employee of a corporation (firm) is assigned a short number (3-4 digits), as if it were a number internal phone employee. And all employees of one company can call each other using these short numbers, but using mobile phones, or special telephone sets, connected directly to the company’s servers providing Internet access.

The peculiarity of mobile virtual telephony is that it does not link the employee to the workplace, to a specific city, or even to a specific country. A short number assigned to a company employee “travels” with him everywhere, along with his gadget and SIM card. The result is a comparable analogue of IP telephony in price, which does not require anything at all from users (and companies) except mobile phones (smartphones, iPhones) and SIM cards mobile operator.

Results

In general, progress does not stand still, and competition encourages manufacturers to find more and more new convenient ways voice and video communications between corporate employees and between ordinary people.

And the “old” telephone companies are not standing still, developing their networks and transferring them “to digital” in search of competitive solutions that will allow them to successfully “compete” with IP telephony.

VoIP technology implements tasks and solutions that would be more difficult or more expensive to implement using PSTN technology.

• Ability to transfer more than one phone call within a high-speed telephone connection. Therefore, VoIP technology is used as simple way to add an additional telephone line to your home or office.

• Properties such as

• conference,
• call forwarding,
• automatic redialing,
• calling number identification,

are provided for free or almost free, while traditional telecommunications companies usually charge for it.

• Secure calls, with a standardized protocol (such as SRTP). Most of the difficulties for enabling secure telephone connections over traditional telephone lines, such as signal digitization, digital signal transmission, have already been resolved within VoIP technologies. It is only necessary to encrypt the signal and identify it for the existing data stream.

• Location independent. You only need an Internet connection to connect to a VoIP provider. For example, call center operators using VoIP phones can work from any office where there is an efficient, fast and stable Internet connection.

• Integration with others over the Internet is available, including video calling, messaging and data exchange during a call, audio conferencing, management address book and receiving information about whether other subscribers are available for a call.

• Additional telephony features - such as call routing, pop-ups, alternative GSM roaming and IVR implementation - are easier and cheaper to implement and integrate. The fact that a telephone call is on the same data network as the user's personal computer opens the way to many new possibilities.

Additionally: the ability to connect direct numbers in any country in the world (DID).

Mobile numbers

Encoding introduces an additional delay of about 15-45 ms, which arises for the following reasons:

• using a buffer to accumulate the signal and take into account the statistics of subsequent samples (algorithmic delay);
• mathematical transformations performed on a speech signal require processor time (computational latency).

A similar delay occurs when decoding speech on the other side.

Codec latency must be taken into account when calculating end-to-end delays (see ). In addition, complex encoding/decoding algorithms require more computational resources of the system.

An analysis of the quality of speech data transmission over the Internet carried out in various research groups shows that the main source of distortion, reduction in the quality and intelligibility of synthesized speech is an interruption in the flow of speech data caused by:

• loss of packets during transmission over the communication network;
• exceeding the permissible delivery time of a packet with voice data.

This requires solving the problem of optimizing network delays and creating speech compression algorithms that are resistant to packet losses (recovering lost packets).

Codecs

The voice compression algorithms used when transmitting over an IP network are quite diverse. Some practically do not compress the voice, leaving it at the level of pulse-code modulation (that is, 64 kilobits per second), other codecs allow you to compress the digital voice stream by 8 times or more due to effective encoding algorithms. There are many good free codecs, the use of which does not require licensing. For others, it is necessary to achieve the appropriate licensing certification between the hardware (software) manufacturer and the authors of the compression method.

Codec Transmission speed, kbit/s Algorithmic delay, milliseconds Occupied stream, kbit/s IP packets Ethernet frames G.711 160 64 20 64,8 80 G.723.1 (6.3) 24 6,3 37,5 6,9 17,1 G.723.1 (5.3) 20 5,3 37,5 5,9 16 G.726-32 160 32 20 32,8 42,7 G.726-24 160 24 20 24,8 34,7 G.726-16 160 16 20 16,8 26,7 G.729 (8) 20 8 25 8,8 18,7 G.729 (6.4) 16 6,4 25 7,2 17,1 Network latency optimization The main advantages of IP telephony are reduced bandwidth requirements, which is ensured by taking into account the statistical characteristics of voice traffic: blocking the transmission of pauses (dialogue, syllabic, semantic, etc.), which can account for up to 40-50% of the time the transmission channel is occupied (VAD); high redundancy of the speech signal and its compression (without loss of quality during restoration) to the level of 20-40% of the original signal (see audio codec). At the same time, packet delays in the network are critical for VoIP, although the technology has some tolerance (resilience) to the loss of individual packets. Thus, the loss of up to 5% of packets does not lead to a deterioration in speech intelligibility. When transmitting telephone traffic using VoIP technology, strict requirements must be taken into account ISO standard 9000 to the quality of services, characterizing: quality of connection establishment, determined mainly by the speed of connection establishment, connection quality, measured by end-to-end (user-perceived) delays and perceived speech quality. The general acceptable delay according to the standard is no more than 250 milliseconds. The reasons for delays in the transmission of voice data over an IP network are largely related to the characteristics of packet transport. The TCP protocol provides packet delivery control, but is quite slow and therefore not used for voice transmission. UDP sends packets quickly, but recovery of lost data is not guaranteed, resulting in lost parts of the conversation when recovered ( inverse transformation) sound. Jitter (deviations in the period of packet arrival and reception), which appears when transmitting through a large number of nodes in a loaded IP network, brings considerable problems. Insufficiently high network bandwidth (for example, with simultaneous load by several users) seriously affects not only delays (that is, an increase in jitter), but also leads to large packet losses To solve such problems, a set of measures is proposed: use of algorithmic restoration of lost parts of the voice (averaging over neighboring data) prioritizing traffic during transport in one network by marking IP packets in the Type of Service field using a variable jitter buffer of the required length, which allows packets to be accumulated and issued again at normal intervals disabling media data proxying at a network bottleneck, that is, achieving direct speech exchange between the calling and called subscriber node through intermediate servers only at the stage of establishing and ending the call use of codecs with lower algorithmic latency (to reduce the load on the processor that implements the ADC and DAC) Connection security Most VoIP customers do not yet support cryptographic encryption, even though having a secure phone connection is much easier to implement with VoIP technology than with traditional phone lines. As a result, using a traffic analyzer, it is relatively easy to monitor VoIP calls, and with some tricks, even change their content. An intruder using a network packet sniffer has the ability to intercept VoIP calls if the user is not within a secure VPN. This security vulnerability can lead to denial of service attacks on the user or someone whose number belongs to the same network. These denials of service can completely destroy a telephone network, overwhelming it with junk traffic, creating a constant busy signal and increasing the number of caller disconnections. However this problem This also applies to traditional telephony, since there are no absolutely secure methods of communication. Consumers can secure their network by limiting access to virtual local network data, hiding your network with voice data from users. If a consumer supports a secure and properly configured gateway gateway with controlled access, it will protect itself from most hacker attacks. There are several resources with open source(open source solutions) that analyze the traffic of VoIP conversations. Low levels of security are provided by proprietary audio codecs that cannot be found on open source lists, but this “security through obscurity” has not proven to be effective in other areas. Some vendors also use compression to make it more difficult to intercept information. It is believed that true network security requires full cryptographic encryption and cryptographic authentication, which are not available to the general consumer. However, in some respects, IP telephony outperforms traditional telephony in terms of security. The current security standard SRTP and the new ZRTP protocol are available on some models of IP phones (Cisco, SNOM), analog telephone adapters (Analog Telephone Adapters, ATAs), gateways, as well as on various softphones. You can use IPsec to secure P2P VoIP by using opportunistic encryption. Skype does not use SRTP, but it does use an encryption system that is transparent to the Skype provider. The Voice VPN solution (which is a combination of VoIP and Virtual Private Network technology) provides the ability to create a secure voice connection for VoIP networks within a company by applying IPSec encryption to the digitized voice data stream. It is also possible to perform multi-level encryption and complete anonymization of all VoIP traffic (voice, video, service information, etc.) using the I2P network, a router program for working with which can be installed on a PC, smartphone, netbook, laptop, etc. d. This network is a completely decentralized, anonymous data transmission medium, where each data packet is subject to four-level encryption using various encryption algorithms with maximum key sizes. An I2P network uses tunnel data transmission, where incoming and outgoing traffic go through different tunnels, each of which is encrypted with different keys, and the tunnels are periodically rebuilt with changing encryption keys. All this leads to the inability to listen and analyze the passing stream by a third party. At the same time, tunneling and encryption do not affect streaming, since a library specially created for streaming services is used, so the data arrives strictly in the given order, without losses or duplications. Caller ID Caller ID support may vary between providers, although most VoIP providers now offer a named Caller ID service for outgoing calls. When a call is made to a local network number from a VoIP provider, the caller ID service is not supported. In some cases, VoIP providers may allow a caller to spoof a caller ID that is not theirs, potentially allowing them to display an ID that is not actually the caller's number. Commercial VoIP equipment and software usually make it easy to change the caller ID information. While this service can provide enormous flexibility, it also opens up the potential for abuse. Traffic statistics Any VoIP connection has a number of parameters that are generally accepted as accurate indicators of assessing the quality of the connection. In addition, most existing operators When providing services, IP telephony even allows you to select the node through which the call will pass, not only based on price, but also on additional statistical parameters characterizing the quality of communication: ASR/ABR - the ratio of the number of calls served to the number of attempts to call as a percentage. Characterizes the best dialing. ACD - average duration of calls through a node to a given direction; % - the percentage of completed calls with a duration of less than 30 seconds. Characterizes the most stable connection during a conversation. Sometimes telecom operators also use other statistical parameters to evaluate the direction: Erlang, post dialing delay (PDD), percentage of packet loss (QoS), maximum increase in calls per second (Calls per seconds, CPS). The IP telephony station/server records detailed information about each specific call in the form of CDR records (call detailed records). Each record contains the number of the caller (A-number) and the called person (B-number), subscribers, IP addresses (or domain names), the time and duration of the call, and the initiator and reason for termination. Detailed records of calls (Call Detail Record), often uploaded to the billing system for analysis and subsequent blocking account caller, if necessary, call authorization (RADIUS). This verification method is usually typical for postpaid payment systems. Online accounting in billing is also used through the Accounting procedure in the RADIUS protocol, which is convenient in prepaid payment systems. Notes see also Links Monitoring and Debugging VoIP Networks Using a Network Analyzer Attack on VoIP: Interception and Eavesdropping “Chronic diseases” VoIP (online presentation, 16 min)

Recently, the telecommunications market has begun to actively “boost” the term IP telephony. Companies experienced a boom in office “mini-PBXs”, when a box weighing 5 kilograms seemed to be the peak of compactness, technology and status. But with the development of the Internet, corporate networks data transmission and other IT staff, it appeared, a technology that turned the game upside down - IP - telephony.

We learn materiel

Most likely, you found this article in the following scenario:

• Opened the search engine;
• I typed a request like “ what is IP telephony»;
• Got here to the site website;

Have you ever thought that after moving from search engine to our resource, your browser contacted by name website, converted it to IP address, packed all the data into a package and sent it to us on the server via the protocol https? That's how it was, yeah.

So, friend, IP telephony is the same thing. Only instead of https, for example, the data packets are filled with information about who is calling and where.

We can safely say that the term itself IP telephony- This is a marketing bullshit. Calls through data networks work within the same model (read the link, it’s useful) as regular traffic, but they simply use other protocols, which are not overridden within this model.

IP telephony is simply a separate set of protocols and standards within the framework of the network operation description model (OSI model). For greater understanding, the term is well suited VoIP (Voice over IP)., which literally translates to “voice over IP.” And yes, VoIP and IP telephony are the same thing.

Next, we will think about the benefits of IP telephony for ordinary users, in comparison with analog communications, digital signal transmission, connecting two cans via a thread and pigeon mail.

Profit

We do not want to inflate this topic and write information that is everywhere for the hundredth time. A short summary of the important advantages, both for individuals who decide to use IP telephony, and for corporations who want to cut down on the operating system:

1. Save some money- calls via IP telephony to the city, intercity and international destinations are cheaper. A priori. Because the provider's traffic goes over the Internet almost to the very end point, without taking up expensive channels;
2. A bunch of new features- once we were listening to how an analogue telephone exchange processes a telephone call - it creaks slightly at that moment. Such. Stations that work with voice over IP have a bunch of features, such as call recording, video calls, conferences, integration with CRM, etc. And they can be easily integrated with anything;
3. Service - modern stations software that work with IP telephony. With a light load, they can be installed even on a nettop. They are also equipped with a WEB interface through which you can configure required functions. To set up analog telephone exchange, you need to beat the tambourine, light a ritual fire in the server room and put on a special shamanic outfit;
4. Keep up with the times- progress is happening and you need to keep up with it. Update your IT and your business will repay you for it ROI :);

Where to begin

Watch this cute video - here it is full information on how to deploy an IP PBX at home or in the office for free:

If you have any questions, we will answer them in the comments :)

Results

The transition to VoIP is wonderful no matter how you look at it. For individual the profit is unconditional - throw away your old disk drive, connect IP telephony and save on calls to your grandmother in Iskitim.

For legal entities – consider ROI and don’t be afraid to invest in the transition from analogue/digital to VoIP. Your employees and partners will appreciate it.

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is a technology for implementing telephone conversations via the Internet, regardless of the geolocation of the interlocutors. The analog signal is converted to digital, and then the gateway compresses and encrypts it, turning it into a so-called IP packet. This packet is transmitted over the network to the recipient, and special program decodes it into its original form. This is how people hear each other. Or they may also see: IP communication allows for video conferencing - an excellent option for meetings when the interlocutors are not able to gather in the office.

About SIP telephony

SIP telephony is a type of IP telephony; it operates on the SIP protocol, the most popular technology. The number in it is not tied to geolocation, which allows you to always be in touch, set up analytics, and call tracking. In addition, it saves traffic, and you can connect mobile phones, tablets, and laptops to it. Therefore, now almost all IP telephonies operate on the SIP protocol - this is very convenient.

Two types of IP telephony according to the method of organization

There are two types of IP telephony – cloud and software. They both work over a VoIP channel and provide integration with CRM, forwarding, and statistics. The only differences are in their implementation.

Software IP-PBXs are installed on the operating room Windows system, they can be connected to the existing infrastructure via digital and analog ports in the company’s office; you will need to purchase equipment and your own server room.

A virtual PBX is when a provider provides an IP PBX for rent in the cloud for subscription fee. The customer himself does not need to buy local server and hire IT specialists.

Options	Cloud	IP-PBX (aka IP-PBX)
Hardware	IP phones, softphones	Analog phones with a gateway connection, IP phones, mobile phones and computers with a softphone
Equipment	IP phones only or application setup	Hardware required: local server, PCI cards
Safety	The provider is responsible for the safety of information to clients	Data is stored on personal server, the client himself is responsible for them
Who is it suitable for?	For small and medium-sized businesses with a stable base of clients, contractors, and employees	For large companies that have a high need to expand their base of clients, contractors, and employees

Due to the fact that it is difficult and expensive to equip, configure and maintain an IP PBX on your own, most small and medium-sized businesses prefer a virtual PBX. And you don't have to buy hardware.

What technology is needed?

To connect IP telephony you will need:

1. Gateway (Gateway) or VoIP gateway– connects telephony over an IP network. It works as follows: it received a signal, digitized it, compressed it, split it into packets and sent it via an IP network to the subscriber. Types of gateways: VoIP – transfers voice to the network in real time for landline phones; GSM – transfers traffic from landline phones to mobile phones; VoIP GSM or SIP-GSM gateway – transfers voice from an IP network to a cellular network.
2. GateKeeper– this is a device that authorizes the subscriber, distributes calls between gateways and is responsible for billing. If your IP telephony will have more than two gateways, then it needs GateKeeper.

1. PBX server (needed if you do not have cloud telephony)– looks like a system unit, connects phones to IP, creates a local network within the company, unloads the external line, controls the local network, unites users.
2. Software– softphone for mobile and tablet, program for computer. The most popular softphones: X-Lite, Zoiper. We at New Tel work with them.
3. Routers (routers)– determine how the call will reach a specific IP address. Modern VoIP gateways immediately contain a built-in router and can monitor security - create an access list, authorize numbers and keep strict records of traffic.

IP gateway is the most economical distribution method virtual PBX throughout the entire company structure. For example, from the head office to branches throughout the city, region, country, and world.

How to connect phones

How to connect equipment:

• On a computer or laptop you need to install a SIP client (program).
• On a tablet or mobile install the SIP application and connect via Wi-Fi or 3G/4G via GSM gateway.
• To IP phone with connector for connecting toEthernet- simply connect to the router. To connect you need a twisted pair cable.
• Ordinarytelephone set connect to the VoIP gateway, and the gateway to the router (if they are not “2 in 1”).

How IP telephony works: practice

Let's say you have an online store and phone numbers of operators and support services. How to connect them into one system? To do this you will need a PBX server, a gateway, and a router. If this is an office IP-PBX, then you will have to involve a VoIP administrator to set up telephony and monitor its proper operation. And install a server in the office in the form system unit. Therefore, it is easier to connect a virtual PBX - here the server will be remote and all the settings will be made by the provider of this service. If there are problems, the VATS provider has a support service that usually works 24/7.

How employees handle calls depends on what telephony equipment is connected to.

Example about mobile employees with mobile phones

If the IP is connected to a mobile phone, then the employee can be anywhere outside the office - on a business trip, on site, at a business meeting, or work remotely from home. He will be accessible and will be able to receive and make calls through a special softphone program installed on the phone. The main thing is that the Internet works on the mobile phone and the number is authorized in the company’s IP network. The same goes for tablets. This is the best option for remote workers.

For example, your sales department is constantly on the road - for meetings and negotiations; salespeople are almost never in the office and often travel to other cities. But they need communication with the logistics department and the warehouse. In IP telephony, employees of all three departments are assigned short numbers, and colleagues can call each other for free and quickly: it’s convenient to dial a short number, the dial-up time is minimal, there is no call forwarding - all issues can be resolved quickly. And you don’t have to pay for communication, even if the seller Ivan is in Saratov, and the logistician Maria is in Moscow.

You can make calls not only within the company, but also to mobile and landline phones around the world - to clients, partners, suppliers. Calls do not use traditional telephony, so call rates within the network no, but calls to other cities and countries are cheaper.

If the network is connected to a landline phone or computer, then employees are in the office and make/receive calls there. In the case of a computer, you need to install the application and a headset with headphones. This is a typical call center example.

But if you want to enter the markets of other regions and countries, you will need virtual numbers.

An example about virtual numbers and a store in the USA

Numbers in IP telephony can be real or virtual - a kind of masking number. They are needed when you need to organize a remote office or representative office in another country, another city, or sell goods abroad.

We already had a case where a client opened a call center in Georgia for calls to the USA.

In this case, your real number is assigned virtual number with the region or country code where you plan to work. Foreign clients and partners will see the number in a familiar format, and it will be easier for them to call you.

For example, you open an online store in the USA. Your real number is the number of the Russian city in which you work. It is not worth putting it on a call in the USA. To do this, purchase a virtual New York number: it will have a New York code and format - for example, + 1 631 9905487. Buyers will call it, not knowing that they are actually calling Moscow or Nizhny Novgorod. Of course, your operators must speak English in order to receive calls. And all incoming messages should be free.

You can set up multichannel for a virtual number: for example, if you need 10 operators to service a store, then set up 10 channels for the number. Then all 10 operators will be able to talk on one number at the same time. It turns out to be a full-fledged call center.

You yourself can also call clients - the same New York number will be displayed in their inbox on their phone.

Why IP telephony became popular

It is becoming increasingly popular due to its easy deployment and configuration. But the most important thing is favorable rates and high-quality communication:

• Traditional telephone networks have excess capacity. And IP telephony compresses the voice packet, and therefore the capacity of the telephone line can be used as economically and fully as possible.
• Calls within the company can be made without an external PBX using an internal server.

High quality of communication is achieved due to the following:

• The operating algorithms of telephone servers are resistant to delays and interference of IP networks.
• You can control the situation: configure the bandwidth parameters and the number of subscribers on one line. This reduces audio latency.
• New protocols are constantly emerging that improve communication quality, such as the RSVP protocol.
• Busy line problem solved thanks to forwarding and standby mode.

But cheap calls are not everything. With IP telephony, you can connect a CRM, keep call statistics, record conversations, set up call forwarding, a blacklist, an answering machine and distribution of calls to numbers/managers. In a virtual PBX, you can set internal short numbers for employees (for example, “566 – Maria, sales department”) and set the hours for receiving incoming calls, taking into account time zones and work schedules. Multichannel is also available, which is ideal for online stores.

We provide IP telephony services: we consult, connect, configure, and offer different tariffs for cloud PBX.

If you need advice, just write to us via chat, call or leave a request. We will call you back and explain everything.

IP and IT telephony are essentially the same thing. This type of telephony is becoming more popular every day. Until recently, the Internet and the telephone were completely different things that could not be united in any way. Now, IP (IT) telephony has appeared. This is a type of communication through which the user personal computer can easily call relatives, friends or colleagues without leaving the workplace. In this case, communication with another user will be carried out using the Internet itself or some other IP network.

History of appearance and use

The communication technology itself appeared a long time ago, back in the 80s. IP telephony technology began to be actively distributed and used already in 1995. The technologies that were used before are no match for what is used today. For example, sound compression was previously carried out using GSM technologies. Until recently, this technology was not used in any way in Russia, and in the United States of America it began to be used only about 7 years ago. Today, completely different technologies are used to transmit information (including audio compression and decompression), which take IP telephony to a completely different level.

Advantages of IP telephony

This type of communication has many advantages. For example, from an economic point of view, a person will spend much less money on making such calls using IP telephony. This will be even more relevant if a person makes long-distance or international calls quite often. The next advantage is that a person can easily make a call either to the interlocutor’s computer or to a telephone. In order to use IP telephony, you need to connect special gateways for IP telephony. With the help of these gateways, the user gets the opportunity to make a call to both the phone and the computer. The principle of operation of such telephony is that this gateway, which on the one hand must be connected to the telephone, and on the other to the IP network, receives a special signal and digitizes it. Then, after this process is completed, the incoming signal is divided into special data packets and compressed to the optimal size. This data is then sent to a special address.