When a start-up company launches an Internet telephone system it is an
interesting phenomenon. When $555-billion Cisco Systems brings such a system to
market, it could well signal a communications revolution. It was less than a
year ago when Cisco chief John Chambers told his engineers he wanted the
traditional telephone on his desk replaced with an Internet phone hooked into
networking equipment that handles both voice and computer data over a single
network.
Cisco this week delivered just such a new TCP/IP-based business office
telephone system that will let companies transmit voice and computer data over a
single network using the Internet protocol (IP) standard. The new system will
allow Cisco to compete more effectively with Lucent and Nortel networks in the
market for "convergent systems," equipment that combine voice, video
and data in a single network. Cisco, analysts say, now appears to have the
technological edge over Lucent and Nortel in that market.
"Cisco's product line in a number of ways was deficient in terms of
handling voice calls, call center applications and real-time video conferencing.
Cisco does not have great historic strength in those areas,'' said Lisa Pierce,
an industry analyst for Giga Information Group. By using the Internet protocol
(IP), a phone conversation can be broken down into the same type of digital
packets that are used to send information across the Internet or an internal
computer network. Because the calls and data share a single network, the
equipment reduces overall costs and making it easier to integrate functions such
as e-mail and voice mail.
Because IP packets scatter as they travel over the network, the challenge for
companies like Cisco is to make sure that all data packets arrive on the other
side of the telephone line in tact and are re-assembled in the right order so
conversations don’t appear garbled. The Cisco equipment would replace the two
communications networks most companies have today, one for telephone and one for
computer data, with just one. "The networks that can't do data, voice and
video are dinosaurs," said Chambers. "We're going to see open
standards for any new telecommunications or computer product to connect to one
network. This is the first gauntlet thrown down in that direction."
Cisco's new Internet phones connect to an office's Ethernet data network
using the same type of jack like those on the back of a standard office
computer. Because it uses the IP protocol, a telephone can identify itself to
the network. This an employee being moved to a new office can just bring his
phone along, plug it into the wall in he new office and not worry about having
to tell every last business associate of the new extension. "You can plug
the phone into any connection, and it will keep the same number you had,"
explained Brian Bonner, chief information officer and a vice president at Texas
Instruments. I can take my phone and plug it in at a TI office in Germany, and
you can dial my number, which looks like Dallas, and it rings in Germany."