IP (Internet Protocol) Telephony

IP (Internet Protocol) Telephony

A WiFi-based VoIP phone

Also known as Internet telephony, IP Telephony is a service based on Voice over IP (VoIP), a disruptive technology that is rapidly gaining ground against traditional telephone network technologies. In Japan and South Korea up to 10% of subscribers, as of January 2005, have switched to this digital telephone service. A January 2005 Newsweek article suggested that Internet telephony may be "the next big thing." [1]

As of 2006 many VoIP companies offer service to consumers and businesses.

IP telephony uses a broadband Internet connection to transmit conversations as data packets. In addition to replacing POTS, IP telephony is also competing with mobile phone networks by offering free or lower cost connections via WiFi hotspots. As mentioned above VoIP is also used on private wireless networks which may or may not have a connection to the outside telephone network.

[edit] Telephone operating companies

In some countries, many telephone operating companies (commonly abbreviated to telco in American English) are in competition to provide telephone services. Some of them are included in the following list. However, the list only includes facilities based providers and not companies which lease services from facilities based providers in order to serve their customers. See also: List of telephone operating companies

[edit] Trivia

• The modern handset came into existence when a Swedish lineman tied a microphone and earphone to a stick so he could keep a hand free.
• The folding portable phone was an intentional copy of the fictional futuristic communicators (which in use actually more closely resembled walkie-talkies, Nextel-style) used in the television show Star Trek, though similar devices were seen in other TV shows before that.
• In Unicode, telephones are depicted with the characters whose hexadecimal codes are 2121 (℡), 260E (☎), 260F (☏) and 2706 (✆), (but may not display properly in some browsers).
• In a January 2007 CBC television show in Canada, the telephone was chosen as #2 on the list of The Greatest Canadian Inventions.