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queue - [TELECOM Digest Editor's Note: This special issue of the Digest isdevoted to VOIP phone service. It will appear in the TelecomArchives in the special reports section. My thanks to Marcus Falcoand John McMullen (johnsmac group) for allowing us to use it. PAT]* Original: FROM..... John McMullenFrom the Wall Street Journal:http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB107350810527282200,00.html?mod=sr%2Dtechnology2004%2D1%5F2SPECIAL REPORT: TECHNOLOGYReady for Prime TimeA new Internet-based phone technology has an un-catchy acronym:VOIP. But don't be fooled: It could make dramatic changes in the waybusinesses operate.By PETER GRANTBruce Cumming hardly ever touches his office phone anymore.When he wants to call someone, Mr. Cumming simply clicks on the namein the contact list in his computer's Microsoft Outlook program. Thenumber rings and, when someone answers, he talks to them on hisspeaker phone.The vice president of National Money Mart Co., a financial-servicesfirm based in Victoria, British Columbia, also uses his computer tocheck voice mail, set up conference calls, and forward calls to hiscellphone, home phone or any other number when he leaves theoffice. Recently, on a trip to National Money's Philadelphia office,Mr. Cumming plugged his laptop into the data network there and itbecame his office phone, with all the features that it offers backhome. If someone called his number in Victoria, his laptop rang inPhiladelphia."When I called out, people would look at their caller ID and see myVictoria number," Mr. Cumming says. "They'd say, 'I thought you werein Philadelphia.'"These phone features became available earlier this year after NationalMoney Mart installed a phone system from Mitel Networks Corp. that uses anew Internet-based phone technology known as VOIP, or voice over Internetprotocol.It's not a catchy name, but get used to it all the same. At the veryleast, telecom experts say, most business phone systems eventuallywill convert to VOIP for cost savings and the wide range of newfeatures the technology offers, like improved conference calling, andcombining voice and e-mail messages on one directory, and, eventually,video phones. At most, they say, the technology could make dramaticchanges in the way businesses operate, comparable to those made by theInternet and the PC.Second ChanceVOIP works by transforming voice into data and then transmitting itover the Internet or some other data network in the same way text,photos and e-mail are sent. Introduced in the mid-1990s, it was one ofthe many new technologies that initially overpromised andunderdelivered, creating great frustration for early adopters and hugelosses for early investors. Some of the earliest businesses thatinstalled VOIP were very critical of the sound quality. And eventoday, there are occasional kinks like echoes and shuttering sounds ifdata is lost in transmission. Still, enough improvements have beenmade to prompt businesses to take a second look at VOIP as a way ofincreasing efficiency and productivity and cutting costs.By the end of this year, about 20% of the new phones being shipped toU.S. businesses will use VOIP technology, according to Yankee Group,a technology consulting firm based in Boston. By 2007 that figureshould exceed 50%, and eventually almost all of the new phones shippedwill use VOIP, Yankee Group predicts. Almost all of the research anddevelopment being done by phone-system developers -- including Mitel,based in Kanata, Ontario, Cisco Systems Inc. of San Jose, Calif.,Nortel Networks Corp. of Brampton, Ontario, and Avaya Inc. of BaskingRidge, N.J. -- is on VOIP."The technology is ready for prime time," says Malcolm Collins,president of Nortel's enterprise networks division.VOIP can make a wide range of existing phone features easier to use,because when voice is turned into data it essentially becomes anotherapplication on the computer. For example, many conventional businessphone systems give workers the ability to see a log of their calls orto program phones to ring at home or on th
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