Telephony is the field of technology involving the development, application, and deployment of telecommunication services for the purpose of electronic transmission of voice, fax, or data, between distant parties. The history of telephony is intimately linked to the invention and development of the telephone.
Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), also called IP telephony, is a methodology and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. The terms Internet telephony, broadband telephony, and broadband phone service specifically refer to the provisioning of communications services over the public Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN).
Telephone number mapping is a system of unifying the international telephone number system of the public switched telephone network with the Internet addressing and identification name spaces. Internationally, telephone numbers are systematically organized by the E.164 standard, while the Internet uses the Domain Name System (DNS) for linking domain names to IP addresses and other resource information. Telephone number mapping systems provide facilities to determine applicable Internet communications servers responsible for servicing a given telephone number using DNS queries.
A softswitch is a central device in a telecommunications network which connects telephone calls from one phone line to another, across a telecommunication network or the public Internet, entirely by means of software running on a general-purpose computer system. Most landline calls are routed by purpose-built electronic hardware; however, soft switches using general purpose servers and VoIP technology are becoming more popular.
An analog telephone adapter (ATA) is a device for connecting traditional analog telephones, fax machines, and similar customer-premises devices to a digital telephone system or a voice over IP telephony network.
The next-generation network (NGN) is a body of key architectural changes in telecommunication core and access networks. The general idea behind the NGN is that one network transports all information and services by encapsulating these into IP packets, similar to those used on the Internet. NGNs are commonly built around the Internet Protocol, and therefore the term all IP is also sometimes used to describe the transformation of formerly telephone-centric networks toward NGN.
Direct inward dialing (DID), also called direct dial-in (DDI) in Europe and Oceania, is a telecommunication service offered by telephone companies to subscribers who operate a private branch exchange (PBX) system. The feature provides service for multiple telephone numbers over one or more analog or digital physical circuits to the PBX, and transmits the dialed telephone number to the PBX so that a PBX extension is directly accessible for an outside caller, possibly by-passing an auto-attendant.
A VoIP phone or IP phone uses voice over IP technologies for placing and transmitting telephone calls over an IP network, such as the Internet, instead of the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN).
In telecommunications business, a white route is a route where both source and destination are legal termination.
This is opposed to a black route, which is a route that is illegal in both ends. Also common in telecom is the term grey route, which defines a route that is legal for one country or the party on one end, but illegal on the alternative end.
VoIP User was a community driven and financed SIP based VoIP network. The projects aim is to introduce people to the concept of VoIP by allowing members to experiment with SIP and IAX2 devices.
Internet fax, e-fax, or online fax is the use of the internet and internet protocols to send a fax (facsimile), rather than using a standard telephone connection and a fax machine. A distinguishing feature of Internet fax, compared to other Internet communications such as email, is the ability to exchange fax messages with traditional telephone-based fax machines.
Origination in VOIP telephony refers to calls that originate in the PSTN public switched telephone network and are carried to their destination over the Internet.
The BT Versatility is a telephone PBX switchboard sold by BT and targeted at small businesses. It is manufactured by Taratel Communications previously Lake Communications in Ireland as the OfficeLink. In South Africa it was sold by Tellumat as the Convergence 30 or C30, in Australia it was sold as the Commander Connect, in the USA it was sold by Inter-tel as the Encore CX and by Mitel as the Mitel 3000
Mobile VoIP or simply mVoIP is an extension of mobility to a Voice over IP network. Two types of communication are generally supported: cordless/DECT/PCS protocols for short range or campus communications where all base stations are linked into the same LAN, and wider area communications using 3G/4G protocols.
T.38 is an ITU recommendation for allowing transmission of fax over IP networks (FoIP) in real time.
Call origination, also known as voice origination, refers to the collecting of the calls initiated by a calling party on a telephone exchange of the PSTN, and handing off the calls to a VoIP endpoint or to another exchange or telephone company for completion to a called party.
Voice peering, also called VoIP peering, refers to the forwarding of calls from one ITSP to another ITSP directly using VoIP technology. The call is not forwarded over the PSTN and this leads to costs savings and better quality because there is no transcoding between the VoIP cloud and the PSTN, and then back from the PSTN to the next VoIP cloud. VoIP peering may occur on Layer 2 basis, i.e. a private network is provided, and carriers connected with it manage peering between one another, or on a layer 5 basis, i.e. peering occurs on open networks, with routing and signaling managed by a central provider.
Pbxnsip is a software implementation of a telephone private branch exchange (PBX) produced by a company of the same name. Like any PBX, it allows attached telephones to make calls to one another, and to connect to other telephone services including the public switched telephone network (PSTN) and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. Its name is a combination of the acronyms PBX and SIP.
3CX is a software-based private branch exchange (PBX) based on the SIP standard. It enables extensions to make calls via the public switched telephone network (PSTN) or via Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services. 3CX for Windows and Linux is an IP business phone system that supports standard SIP soft/hard phones, VoIP services and traditional PSTN phone lines.
A VoIP gateway is a gateway device that uses Internet Protocols to transmit and receive voice communications (VoIP). The general term is ambiguous and can mean many different things. There are many such devices. They are quickly becoming the most common type of voice phone service in many areas.
