Can there be any future for traditional telephony?
A seismic shift is underway in the telecommunications world where Voice over Internet Protocol has begun to make its inevitable move from the consumer realm into the mainstream as an enterprise service, and is beginning to consign traditional telephony to the dustbin of history.
For many years VoIP, or internet telephony, was considered too unreliable for general use by all but a few early adopters but now it is difficult to find large domestic or multinational companies that are not either in the process of adopting VoIP, or at least planning to layer voice services on top of their data networks.
The technology and financial services sectors that led the move towards converged networks and IP-based telephony have been joined by companies in almost every sector. Some companies, such as Boeing, the US aerospace company, have launched huge IP telephony projects.
Boeing announced plans two years ago to scrap 125 older phone switches and replace them with internet-based systems from Cisco, one of the leading IP telephony equipment vendors.
“As competition becomes fiercer across all industries, enterprises are pressured to control
