Advantages & Disadvantages of IP Phones
Voice Over Internet Protocol, commonly known as VOIP, allows users to establish voice connections over the Internet, much like traditional telephone services that traverse dedicated copper wires. While a growing number of users continue to adopt the technology, the relatively new protocol has a number of disadvantages that counter its benefits.
Advantage: Cost
A primary benefit of IP phones, and a benefit often referenced by IP telephone service providers such as Vonage and Magic Jack, is the reduction of cost for IP telephone customers. Traditional, circuit-based telephone companies have invested billions of dollars over several decades to build out their infrastructure and provide expensive resources dedicated to maintaining voice communications. Because VOIP technology relies on the Internet, rather than an expensive dedicated network, IP phone service providers can charge considerably lower prices than their traditional counterparts.
Advantage: Mobility
With the introduction of modular plugs in the 1980s, traditional telephones began to allow users to move the devices from place to place with relative ease. If the user moved the phone to a different location, though, the telephone would operate with a different telephone number and, depending on the service provider, enable different features. IP phones, by contrast and according to IP product vendor Cisco, register with a central server regardless of their physical location. For this reason, a user can move an IP phone from location to location, state to state or even to another country while still keeping the same telephone number and set of features.
Advantage: Features
Traditional telephone services allow basic features such as call waiting, conference calling, voicemail and caller identification. According to the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), IP phones typically enable all of these features and a number of others not available in the traditional telephone network. IP phones, for example, can allow a user to place a call on hold and pick it up from anywhere else with an Internet connection, transfer a call to a telephone on another network, ring incoming calls to several telephones on different networks at the same time and even deliver voicemail messages via e-mail. The specific features offered supported by IP phones vary from phone to phone, and many may require support from the VOIP service provider.
Disadvantage: Quality of Service
While the Internet-based routing of IP phone calls enables cheap, mobile service, it also moves voice traffic off a dedicated network and onto an ever-changing digital landscape. In the absence of a dedicated set of voice circuits, IP phones typically, according to Cisco, convert voice sounds into data packages, address them to the VOIP switch and send them out across the Internet with no guarantee that they will arrive at their destination. Despite numerous quality of service (QoS) measures implemented by IP phone vendors, VOIP users may occasionally experience a delay in the conversation (latency), poor or robotlike sound quality (jitter) or miss portions of the conversation (packet loss).
Disadvantage: Internet Requirement
Despite their high mobility, IP phones must have access to the Internet to work. Because IP phones rely on the ability to connect to the Internet and send data packets, according to Cisco, users must subscribe to a broadband Internet service to use the devices. According to the FCC, this requirement may represent an additional expense to users who do not already subscribe to an Internet connection.
Disadvantage: Electricity
Traditional telephones require a small amount of electricity to operate, according to service provider CenturyLink, but they pull that electricity from a special line card in the telephone company central office. As a result, customers can still use a traditional telephone during a power outage. IP phones, according to the FCC, must draw commercial power to perform their functions and may leave customers without telephone service during a power interruption.
Tags: service provider, according Cisco, Advantages Disadvantages, Advantages Disadvantages Phones, dedicated network, Disadvantages Phones
