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VoIP: Hype or Reality?

By Paul Chisholm
February 28, 2008
Many people use free or consumer-class Voice over Internet Protocol ('VoIP') solutions and make long-distance calls for 'free.' But is this VoIP technology suitable for a law firm? Will it provide the business-class security and reliability expected in a phone system?

VoIP is the technology used to transmit voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network. With VoIP, voice conversation is broken up into packets of data that are transmitted over the Internet or over a proprietary broadband network before being reassembled on the terminating end of the call.

Business-class VoIP provides tight integration between the desktop employees who use it every day and the phone system that runs on a separate technology. Now, the e-mail, calendaring and instant messaging on desktops becomes integrated with the telephone, video, audio conferencing and facsimile of the VoIP solution. The benefit to the firm and its users? Single directories, unified messaging and self-management of phone configurations ' all from one interface.

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