Related Research Articles
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 method 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 Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN), also known as plain old telephone service (POTS).
Technological convergence, also known as digital convergence, is the tendency for technologies that were originally unrelated to become more closely integrated and even unified as they develop and advance. For example, watches, telephones, television, computers, and social media platforms began as separate and mostly unrelated technologies, but have converged in many ways into interrelated parts of a telecommunication and media industry, sharing common elements of digital electronics and software.
A voicemail system is a computer-based system that allows users and subscribers to exchange personal voice messages; to select and deliver voice information; and to process transactions relating to individuals, organizations, products, and services, using an ordinary phone. The term is also used more broadly to denote any system of conveying a stored telecommunications voice messages, including using an answering machine. Most cell phone services offer voicemail as a basic feature; many corporate private branch exchanges include versatile internal voice-messaging services, and *98 vertical service code subscription is available to most individual and small business landline subscribers.
HCL Sametime Premium is a client–server application and middleware platform that provides real-time, unified communications and collaboration for enterprises. Those capabilities include presence information, enterprise instant messaging, web conferencing, community collaboration, and telephony capabilities and integration. Currently it is developed and sold by HCL Software, a division of Indian company HCL Technologies, until 2019 by the Lotus Software division of IBM.
Broadvoice is a privately owned company headquartered in Northridge, California. They provide Voice over IP (VoIP) cloud-based telecommunications services to small, medium and enterprise businesses in the United States. Broadvoice offers telephone services, UCaaS, SIP Trunking, telecommunications network and security, along with virtual call centers so business customers can use voice and video communications via a broadband Internet connection or cellular phone.
VocalTec Communications Inc. is an Israeli telecom equipment provider. The company was founded in 1985 by Alon Cohen and Lior Haramaty, who patented the first Voice over IP audio transceiver. VocalTec has supplied major customers such as Deutsche Telekom, Telecom Italia, and many others.
Orange Business Services, the business services arm of Orange S.A., is a global integrator of communications products and services for multinational corporations.
Selsius Systems was a telecommunications company in Dallas, Texas that developed and marketed some of the first IP telephony gear. It was co-founded by Richard Platt and David Tucker. Selsius was incorporated in 1997 and acquired by Cisco Systems in November, 1998.
Snom Technology GmbH is a German company which manufactures Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephones, based on the IETF standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP). Snom's products are targeted at the small- to medium-sized business sector, home offices, Internet service providers, carriers, and original equipment manufacturers. The company, founded in 1996 and headquartered in Berlin, is a wholly owned subsidiary of VTech Holdings Limited, since 2016.
Unified communications (UC) is a business and marketing concept describing the integration of enterprise communication services such as instant messaging (chat), presence information, voice, mobility features, audio, web & video conferencing, fixed-mobile convergence (FMC), desktop sharing, data sharing, call control and speech recognition with non-real-time communication services such as unified messaging. UC is not necessarily a single product, but a set of products that provides a consistent unified user interface and user experience across multiple devices and media types.
TouchWave, Inc., was a privately held Palo Alto, California IP-telephony network switch provider founded in 1997. TouchWave developed a product line called WebSwitch that was designed to replace traditional private telephone exchange systems in small-to-medium-sized companies. WebSwitch was part of a phone system that incorporates communication features provided by the Internet. The rapid success of TouchWave was memorialized with awards and an acquisition by Ericsson Communications for $46M two years after TouchWave was founded. Ericsson continued the TouchWave product line under the name WebCom, but its efforts have been viewed as less than successful.
The Innovative Communications Alliance (ICA) was a telecommunications alliance between Microsoft and Nortel, created in July 2006, to co-develop, integrate, market, sell, and support unified communications products. The goal of the alliance is to make integrated hardware and software solutions that join together voice, video, and data communications without requiring gateways or middleware. Microsoft and Nortel share developing technologies and patents for unified communications products.
Unify, is an Atos company headquartered in Munich, Germany and is present in over 100 countries. The company provides software-based enterprise unified communications including voice, Web collaboration, video conferencing and contact center, networking product and services.
Cloud communications are Internet-based voice and data communications where telecommunications applications, switching and storage are hosted by a third-party outside of the organization using them, and they are accessed over the public Internet. Cloud services is a broad term, referring primarily to data-center-hosted services that are run and accessed over an Internet infrastructure. Until recently, these services have been data-centric, but with the evolution of VoIP, voice has become part of the cloud phenomenon. Cloud telephony refers specifically to voice services and more specifically the replacement of conventional business telephone equipment, such as a private branch exchange (PBX), with third-party VoIP service.
Callware Technologies, Inc. (Callware) is a software company in the telecommunication industry, headquartered in Salt Lake City, Utah. It specializes in developing unified communication and unified messaging solutions for the US Department of Defense, government, educational institutions, and mid to enterprise business.
Founded in 1975, Toshiba Telecommunication Systems Division (TSD) was a division of Toshiba America Information Systems Inc. (TAIS). This, in turn, is an independent operating company owned by Toshiba America Inc., a subsidiary of Toshiba Corporation.
Jeff Lawrence is an entrepreneur, technologist and philanthropist.
Empirix Inc. is a privately held company which designs and manufactures service assurance testing and monitoring equipment for IP-based communications networks such as Voice-over-Internet-Protocol (VoIP), IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS)-based, next generation network and 4G wireless networks. Empirix offers enterprise and carrier grade products as well as quality assurance products for network equipment manufacturers. Empirix is headquartered in Billerica, MA. On April 21st, 2021, Empirix has been acquired by Infovista, a Network automation software. Infovista, which is majority owned by Apax Partners, says the deal “brings together a team of over 1,000 professionals serving over 1,700 customers across more than 150 countries, including 23 of the top 30 CSPs globally.”
Spirit DSP is a Russian company that develops embedded software for real-time voice and video communication over IP networks – voice and video engines. Its voice and video software platform is used by carriers, mobile messaging apps, and social networks, serving more than 1 billion users in 100 countries.