What is Telephony?
Telephony refers to the technology and systems used for transmitting voice, fax or data over long distances. Historically, this was achieved through traditional landline phones connected to a public switched telephone network (PSTN). However, the landscape has evolved significantly with the advent of digital technologies.
Benefits
- Communication: Enables real-time voice communication between individuals or groups.
- Connectivity: Connects people and businesses across geographical distances.
- Productivity: Facilitates efficient communication and collaboration within organisations.
- Accessibility: Provides access to essential services and information.
Use Cases:
- Voice calls: Traditional phone calls between individuals.
- Faxing: Sending and receiving documents electronically.
- Voicemail: Storing and retrieving voice messages.
- Call centres: Handling customer inquiries and support.
- Unified communications: Integrating voice, video, messaging, and collaboration tools.
Key Components:
- Public switched telephone network (PSTN): The traditional infrastructure for voice communication.
- Private branch exchange (PBX): An on-premises system for managing internal and external calls.
- Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP): Transmitting voice calls over data networks.
- Unified communications as a service (UCaaS): Cloud-based delivery of communication and collaboration tools.
- Session Initiation Protocol (SIP): A signalling protocol used for initiating, managing and terminating multimedia communication sessions.
