Mobile phones & Handheld
Devices
Telcos and consumers have invested
billions of dollars in mobile phone equipment. In developed countries,
mobile phones have achieved nearly complete market penetration,
and many people are giving up landlines and using mobiles exclusively.
Given this situation, it is not entirely clear whether there would
be a significant higher demand for VoIP among consumers until
either public or community wireless networks have similar geographical
coverage to cellular networks (thereby enabling mobile VoIP phones,
so called WiFi phones or VoWLAN) or VoIP is implemented over legacy
3G networks. However, "dual mode" telephone sets, which allow
for the seamless handover between a cellular network and a WiFi
network, are expected to help VoIP become more popular.
Phones like the NEC N900iL, and
later the Nokia E60, E61 have been the first "dual mode" telephone
sets capable of delivering mobile VoIP. With more and more mobile
phones and handheld devices using VoIP, the nicknames of "MoIP"
and MVoIP (Mobile VoIP)have been attributed to these mobile applications.
Handheld Devices are another type
of medium whereby you can use VoIP services. Since most of these
devices are limited to using GSM/GPRS type of communication mediums,
almost all of the handheld devices use WiFi of some sort.
Another addition to handheld devices
are ruggedized barcode type devices that are used in warehouses
and retail environments. These type of devices rely on "inside
the 4 walls" type of VoIP services that do not connect to the
outside world and are solely to be used from employee to employee
communications.
Corporate and telco use
Although few office environments
and even fewer homes use a pure VoIP infrastructure, telecommunications
providers routinely use IP telephony, often over a dedicated IP
network, to connect switching stations, converting voice signals
to IP packets and back. The result is a data-abstracted digital
network which the provider can easily upgrade and use for multiple
purposes.
Corporate customer telephone support
often use IP telephony exclusively to take advantage of the data
abstraction. The benefit of using this technology is the need
for only one class of circuit connection and better bandwidth
use. Companies can acquire their own gateways to eliminate third-party
costs, which is worthwhile in some situations.
VoIP is widely employed by carriers,
especially for international telephone calls. It is commonly used
to route traffic starting and ending at conventional PSTN telephones.
Many telecommunications companies
are looking at the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) which will merge
Internet technologies with the mobile world, using a pure VoIP infrastructure. It will enable them to upgrade their existing
systems while embracing Internet technologies such as the Web,
email, instant messaging, presence, and video conferencing. It
will also allow existing VoIP systems to interface with the conventional
PSTN and mobile phones.
Click to call
Click-to-call is a service which
lets users click a button and immediately speak with a customer
service representative. The call can either be carried over VoIP,
or the customer may request an immediate call back by entering
their phone number. One significant benefit to click-to-call providers
is that it allows companies to monitor when online visitors change
from the website to a phone sales channel.