Swisscom has been gradually switching off analog and ISDN connections since 2017, and the complete transition should be completed in the near future. So how do we communicate with each other? It feels the same as before, because the user's perception doesn't change very much. But there is a different technology behind it: Voice over IP packages our communication into small data packets and transfers them over the Internet. The technology is not all that new. As early as 47 years ago in 1973, the U.S. Air Force experimented with digital voice transmission in its own computer network. In the 1990s, voice-over-IP software became popular with the first freely available solution in German-speaking countries. By the turn of the millennium at the latest, IT experts were intensively involved with the technology. Why? What are the benefits?

What made Voice-over-IP attractive in the beginning

In the beginning, it was mainly about cost savings. The world was growing together and telephone calls to the USA, Asia or South America were increasing within internationally active corporations as well as in the private sector. At that time, the new technology was used to avoid the still very high telephone charges. What had previously meant a lot of work for electronics engineers in telephony was now the task of IT. At the time, people were talking about cost savings of over 60 percent. For the operators of the communications networks such as Swisscom, there are fewer costs and less maintenance work in a network that is uniformly structured according to standards.

Opportunities for the new forms of work

So it is an old hat and not the latest technology? Yes, Voice over IP has made great strides in voice quality with HD Voice and fits in perfectly with our new ways of working like hardly any other technology. Whether I work in a home office, in the office, or as a self-employed person in a café, I take my landline number with me wherever I go via my personal log-in in the IP phone. Via apps, I transfer the number to my laptop, tablet or smartphone. Data transfer and direct communication are growing together anyway in digital collaboration forms, and that's exactly what this technology supports. It enables online meetings with joint interaction on the screen. Today, telephony is only one part of the communication forms, so it is only logical to transfer its technical basis into the new context and the necessary platforms.

Facing challenges

When both data and telephony run over the Internet, it naturally requires a stable connection and corresponding bandwidths. Today, costly investments, maintenance and electricity costs of server rooms are superfluous, as everything is web-based via the cloud. This requires service providers with highly secure data centers that also organize the gateways. Call groups can be quickly created and numbers assigned via the web interface. With our experience as an IT service provider, we support you in introducing Voice over IP in your company in a cost-saving way. Your core competence lies in the content of the communication, the underlying technologies are our area of expertise.