| VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), or IP telephony, | | | | sway the customers to their side. |
| has become a widespread means of communication | | | | The global VoIP market is expected to reach $3.3 |
| today. While earlier this was the choice of only a | | | | billion by 2010. It is increasingly becoming an |
| select few, people are now increasingly adopting VoIP | | | | indispensable tool for businessmen because it provides |
| solutions. The number of players in this field has gone | | | | cost savings, excellent coverage of voice and data, |
| up substantially and will continue to increase. The | | | | and better communication. In a recent study, the VoIP |
| heavy competition prevalent in the IP telephony market | | | | market was divided into three groups, namely VoIP |
| has driven service providers to slash their prices and | | | | over VPN, VoIP real-time QoS bandwidth, and hosted |
| offer a wide range of features. | | | | VoIP. |
| IP telephony uses packet-switching protocol to transmit | | | | Multi-national companies use VoIP over VPN (Virtual |
| voice signals over broadband lines instead of the | | | | Private Network) to eliminate long distance toll charges |
| conventional circuit-switching network. Analysts have | | | | for communication between different sites. Healthcare |
| predicted that when unified messaging services that | | | | (telemedicine) and broadcasting enterprises use VoIP |
| include voice mail, email, faxes, and pages are coupled | | | | real-time QoS bandwidth to provide real time audio |
| with IP telephones, it will propel the market to incredible | | | | and video data transfer. Hosted VoIP enables |
| heights. | | | | enterprises to save on upgrades and capital |
| Analysts have further predicted that by 2009, there will | | | | expenditure. |
| be over 155 million business IP endpoints in operation, | | | | The growth of VoIP shows immense potential to |
| and over 37% of these will be wireless. By 2009, 73% | | | | influence the telecommunications market and bring |
| of customers the world over will be using a wireless | | | | about a radical change. |
| handset. The wireless IP end points hold the key to | | | | |