What is IP Telephony?

Telephony application using VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technology which delivers QoS (Quality of Service).

IDC expects the IP telephony market to grow at a CAGR of 119 percent, to touch Rs. 13,000 crore by 2005. With costs falling drastically, a significant portion could also come from the 'grey' market estimated to be more than 2 million minutes.

Enterprises and corporates can connect with anyone, anywhere, anytime at very low costs. For the record, about 1.5 million overseas calls are made from India everyday.

What can Internet Telephony mean for India Inc.? One, there would be substantial cost reductions resulting in real savings in long distance telephone costs, which can be extremely important to most companies, especially those considering global operations.

PC-to-PC communication will help enterprises in communicating with their regional and corporate (HQ) offices, translating to significant cuts in STD/ISD costs.

PC-to-phone (abroad) will help employees converse with partners or principals abroad at lower ISD costs. Home users will have low-cost voice communication to overseas locations.

Value Added Services
Internet telephony is expected to bring along a host of value added services like voice & video conferencing, fax over IP, managed voice (Centrex) services, Internet call waiting services (ICWS), unified messaging service (UMS) and voice mail. Call centers can use Web links for their communications, which could be services by ISPs offering Net telephony.