Featured Gadget: IP Phone

A few weeks ago I came early for work and found a newly installed Cisco IP Phone right onto my desk. Whoa!!!!

As a guy, this is just what I love about working in technology firms – you get to play with the coolest gadgets and latest technologies. I know however, that this may not be new to many of you since several offices in the metro also have IP phones.

What’s an IP phone anyway?
IP stands for Internet Protocol. It is the standard by which computers connected to the Internet communicate with one another. Simply stated if we say IP phone, it is a phone that makes calls using the Internet as its backbone.

Familiar with Yahoo Messenger’s Voice or Call functionality? As well as that of MSN? If you ever tried calling to another person using Yahoo Messenger, you are actually using IP to communicate with that person. The only difference if we use an IP phone is that you don’t need a computer or an Instant Messaging software to call a person. Just connect your IP phone and call whoever you want in the world via the Internet.

How do we dial using an IP phone?
No need to worry – you won’t be necessarily dialing IP addresses such as 165.21.154.118. It’s plain silly to call phone numbers with IP addresses. What if you forgot where the dot is located?

Dialing is exactly the same as an analog phone. You see, the main difference is that your call passes through the Internet. However, I am not aware if there are cases where you need to dial the actual IP address instead of the telephone number.

What do we get out of an IP phone?
This means that we get incredibly cheap rates when calling overseas. Some calls are even toll-free. The only disadvantage of using these phones is that sometimes the voice quality can be total crap especially during times when you hear your caller’s voice sound like a monster. While this doesn’t happen always, it still is very disturbing. My guess is that this is just temporary because the technology has not been perfected yet, well at least for now.