Switching to VoIP

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

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Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

Enterprise Telephony Applications

In the previous chapter, the technologies of legacy voice network systems were dis-

cussed. Some might find that subject fascinating enough to have spent more than a

chapter on it. In fact, there are volumes on the subject, and the ITU web site (http://

www.itu.int) is filled with papers that describe it all in painfully unsparing verbosity.

But it’s telephony, the application functionality within the voice network, that is the

fun part. Telephony accommodates and assists human interaction in a very real, per-

sonal way, which is why it’s such an engaging subject. Unlike written forms of com-

munication, such as email or instant messaging, telephony’s distinguishing traits are

its use of sound and its immediate, real-time nature. It’s a much more fundamental

mode of interaction than the written form—because when we use telephony, we

talk, the same thing we do when we’re together.

Telephony can use live, immediate speech or speech that’s recorded, stored, and

played back later, depending upon the needs of the application—and it can be

largely automated using well-defined standards. In fact, computer-integrated tele-

phony applications have even been programmed to recognize and respond to human

voice commands.

Telephony is an extensible, ...