The advent of cellular phones not only revolutionised the telecommunication industry but also provide busy individuals with the opportunity to be in continuous contact with people at any place coupled with unimaginable boost to the businesses.
The convenience and reliability of mobile phones have smoothed the way to some extent, but it comes at a cost. Hefty monthly bills and usage of costly prepaid cards are normal, and overseas, roaming charges added to the misery.
Naturally, regular business travellers avoid hotel phones whenever possible. Exorbitant mark-ups mean that even the shortest long-distance or international call results in a big addition to the bill.
Contacting the country from international locations, calling cards have long been a preferred option for cost-conscious business travellers, but their inflexibility and sometimes poor call quality make them less than ideal.
Most require dialling long sequences of numbers before each call and, because they have to be purchased in set amounts, any unused credit is lost. Now an emerging technology is promising to revolutionise communications for cost conscious people.
Called voice over internet protocol, it uses the internet to bypass traditional phone networks, and the steep charges of telecommunications carriers.
By converting voice conversations into binary stream, internet protocol telephony allows calls to be carried over the internet like other data traffic.
When the call reaches its destination, it is routed to the conventional telephone network. With this method, users can make long-distance calls but pay only for the part of the call that goes over the phone network: often just a local-call charge.
Net phone is particularly attractive to home and small business users keen to reduce their monthly phone bills. A small adapter is connected to an existing ADSL or cable broadband service and to a conventional phone handset so calls can be made and received as usual.
For travelling executives, however, the prospect of carting around an adapter is not an attractive or convenient one. To overcome this, a range of so-called soft phones has emerged.
Soft phones are small software packages that can be loaded to a laptop computer and used to make and receive phone calls. With the addition of a headset and microphone, call quality is usually as good as, if not better than, using a standard telephone.
When running, a soft phone appears as a virtual keypad and display on the laptop screen. Numbers are entered by clicking the keypad numbers, and can be stored in memory for later use.
Before a soft phone is used for the first time, it needs to be calibrated to suit the conditions. A brief test is run to check levels on both the microphone and headset and to gauge ambient sound levels.
Many net phone services offer a fixed-line call number as part of their service. Usually having the same area code as the home base of the user, these are used to direct incoming calls. When a caller dials a net phone number, the call is carried over the conventional phone network to the service provider's switch, where it is routed over the internet. Thus, the calling party only pays for the cost of a local call, regardless of where they are.
As long as users have their soft phones running on their laptops and are connected to a broadband service, the call will be diverted to them.
Most services also offer a voicemail facility to catch calls made while the user is offline.
VOIP (Voice over internet protocol): The technology used to send voice conversations over a data network.
SIP (Session Initiation Protocol): The underlying technology that controls internet-based telephone calls and allows them to be connected to the conventional phone network.
WiFi (Wireless Fidelity): The standard on which wireless local area networks are based. These can be in-building or public hotspot networks over which VoIP calls can be made.
SOFT PHONE: A software application usually installed on a laptop computer that allows VoIP calls to be made and received over a broadband internet connection.
USB PHONE: A telephone handset that plugs into the USB port of a PC and allows VoIP calls to be made and received.
ATA (Analogue Telephone Adaptor): A small box that sits between a broadband internet connection and a conventional phone handset, allowing VoIP calls to be made over the connection.