IP Telephony and VoIP
Comprehensive Voice Communications
IP Telephony is the technology for transmitting voice communications over a network using open-standards-based IP. Cisco IP Telephony products are a central component of the Cisco Unified Communications system of voice and IP communications products that can help you streamline business processes, reach the right resource the first time, and generate greater profits.
Cisco IP Telephony provides a comprehensive suite of IP-based hardware and software products, including IP phones, media processing devices, voice over IP (VoIP) gateways, and multimedia applications. This suite of solutions scales from a small sites or branch offices to large, multisite enterprise deployments and can integrate with existing systems to help you migrate to full unified communications and protect your technology investments.
IP Telephony Enables Reliable Communications
IP telephony provides a way for you to extend consistent communication services to all your employees, whether they are in main campus locations, at branch offices, or working remotely, or are mobile. IP telephony transmits voice communications over a network using open-standards-based Internet Protocol.
Cisco IP telephony products are a key component of the Cisco Unified Communications system, which delivers the business benefits of a converged network to organisations of all sizes. Use Cisco IP telephony solutions to:
- Provide secure, reliable, scalable communications that take advantage of your LAN and WAN
- Improve employee productivity through integration with innovative applications
Cisco IP telephony products support a wide range of Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) capabilities including:
- Support for presence-based applications
- Simplified administration and maintenance, including introduction of an appliance model implementation for Cisco Unified Communications Manager
- IP phones with enhanced SIP feature support, and Gigabit Ethernet support
This network provides a secure foundation optimised for wired and wireless IP communications, and includes the ability to support IP-to-IP gateways for easy and cost-effective connectivity between independent voice-over-IP (VoIP) networks and analog phone gateways using your existing phone equipment.
See how IP telephony products fit in the Cisco Unified Communications System.
http://www.cisco.com/go/unifiedcommunications
Business Communications: Cost and Productivity Improvements
Business communications challenges can affect both profitability and customer/partner relationships. Four primary challenges include:
- Communication-caused delay and disruption
- Communications complexity affects long-term productivity, business process reform, and financial performance
- Decision-support outcomes suffer from inability to access and collaborate effectively with primary players
- Resources are underused or misallocated because of the complexity of communication
The failure to address business communications challenges inflicts real penalties: A 2005 Sage Research study discovered that 22% of the organisations it polled reported experiencing business communication-caused delays on a monthly basis, while 13% said such delays happen every week
Business Communications Today Require Flexibility
After massive investments in technologies and devices, organisations demand ways of simplifying business communications for their mobile and distributed workforce to improve communication flows, access primary decision makers quickly, enhance collaboration, and improve productivity to positively affect their business.
The means to flexibly and productively manage business communications in a multi-device, mobile, and distributed environment:
- Speeds access and improves communication
- Integrates different device modes and communication applications
- Dramatically improve collaboration
- Allows organisations to streamline business processes, reach the right resource the first time, and enhance profitability
Cisco business communications solutions provide an integrated communications strategy and architecture, helping enable the secure combination of voice, video, and collaborative data applications within an integrated and intelligent network.
Business Communications Benefits Add Up
As unified communications applications become more prevalent in the workplace, more organisations are also realising the associated benefits. Results documented by Sage Research demonstrate a multitude of benefits-both in terms of employee time savings and financial savings. Unified communications applications not only facilitate productivity improvements for mobile employees, they can also enhance the way in which all employees communicate.
- Organisations using unified communications clients saved an average of 32 minutes daily per employee because presence technology enabled staff to reach one another on the first try.
- Use of softphones resulted in an average savings of $1,727 per month in cell phone and long distance charges. Mobile workers also saved 40 minutes each day, enjoyed greater communications convenience, and generated annual productivity gains of 3.5 days per year through business continuity impact.
- Organisations using unified messaging reported that employees saved 43 minutes per day from more efficient message management while mobile workers saved 55 minutes per day.
- Companies using integrated voice and Web conferencing reported a 30% reduction in conferencing expenses (by making integrated conferencing capabilities available in-house and on-network) and an average savings of $1,700 per month in travel costs.
For others, the savings may simply come from having reduced hardware requirements and operating expenses.
And in today's dynamic business environment, perhaps the most important benefit comes from having a phone system that can change and grow at a moment's notice, enabling new capabilities for more effective communications, streamlining business processes, and improving profitability.
Migrating to Unified Communications
Voice over IP (VoIP), IP telephony, rich-media conferencing, and intelligent networks come together to provide significant cost savings and productivity benefits.