Expensive calls via usual phone gradually leave the market due to the IP-telephony services that transfer voice over the network. Video and voice calls, implemented by means of IP-telephony, began to gain popularity in the 2000s, and now it is widely used both by private users and in business.
Although the IP-telephony became wide-known after Internet development, it has more than a long history of the establishment. Today the SIP trunk Australia or UK may offer you cheap communication services, and this is all possible due to the long history of IP-telephony.
“Prehistoric” era of IP-telephony
The technological foundations of VoIP were laid in 1925-1928, when an electronic-speech synthesizer, also known as Vocoder, was created in the depths of the AT&T communication enterprise. The device analyzed the human sounds and recreated an analog of human speech. The vocoder was actively used to transmit secret information during the Second World War.
In 1991, Autodesk founder John Walker created a scheme for VoIP, which requires a bandwidth of only 32 kbps and made a public release of the Net Fone program, which became the world’s first VoIP phone. Although the only thing for which Net Fone was used was communication within Walker`s company.
VoIP straightened its shoulders
The emergence and spreading of global network almost immediately led to the desire to talk privately. In response to the demands of millions of potential users, VoIP appeared in 1995, as a packet-based voice transmission protocol. They went from one IP-address to another using an Ethernet protocol. So, this is how IP-telephony appeared.
Initially, IP-telephony was considered only as a cheap alternative to long-distance and international communication. However, it quickly became in demand by domestic and commercial users for any, primarily local, communication sessions.
The pioneers of VoIP was the Israeli “Vocal Tec”, which in 1995 released the first Internet phone available to people.
Cisco Unique experiment
Today, one of the world leaders in communication technologies is Cisco. In 2000, it initiated corporate migration to the IP-telephony of her headquarters in California (San Jose). In one year, 55 buildings and 20,000 people were transferred to IP-telephony. It was one of the largest projects in the sphere. This experiment has also affected the company profile – Cisco provides unique powerful solutions in the field of IP-telephony and network management now.
The story is not finished yet
IP-telephony has lots of pros that made it extremely popular and give the potential for development:
- it is cheap;
- it has open standards;
- it is simple to use and install;
- it is supported by many devices and platforms;
- it is easily integrated into third-party applications.
The IP-telephony surrounds us both at home and at work. It created a new foundation in communications — even huge companies were forced to reduce prices and seek convergent solutions for their customers. So, the history of IP-telephony continues and promises to be exciting.
