This Cisco VoIP platform offers features such as call transfers, holds and conferencing, in addition to all that high-tech telephony stuff such as support for Voice over Frame relay (VoFR), Voice over ATM (VoATM-AALS) and digital interfaces, including T1/E1 and BRI.

This year's ripeness for VoIP penetration can be attributed to several factors. In the U.S., the Federal Communications Commission mandated that VoIP telephony will not be regulated. Besides continued cheaper prices compared to traditional telephony, the mandate has enticed non-traditional providers, such as DSL and cable Internet providers, to offer VoIP. The added number of carriers has thus added to VoIP's impetus and fueled increased competition, which of course will likely mean lower prices.

Concurrently, telephony equipment vendors have shifted their capital expenditures and investments during the past year away from traditional telephony systems and into advanced features for VoIP. As the economy begins to build up steam in the U.S., and probably in Europe this year, enterprises will likely turn on their spending taps for new telephony and will find that VoIP offers more advanced features at a better price/quality ratio. Of course, the decision to go with VoIP does not factor in the additional costs savings afforded by cheaper long distance phone rates.

Additionally, vendors such as 3Com, Cisco, Avaya, Mitel, Nortel and Siemens offer hybrid systems that mix traditional telephony and VoIP for customers nervous about taking the plunge. These hybrid systems allow enterprises to try out the technology, and they can still rely on old-fashioned telephone systems in case their VoIP experiment fails.

Additionally, a major premise behind buying into VoIP is how, at least in theory, it can make enterprises more productive, especially in the case of large companies seeking to bundle all voice and network data management under a single umbrella. Users of VoIP-enabled phone systems, once integrated with an Ethernet based LAN, for example, can use workstations to search for and then automatically dial numbers, read voice mail digitized or retrieve email messages that are read aloud over the phone when a user travels. Additional features such as conference calls and caller ID functions represent common features that more advanced traditional telephony offers.

On a hardware level, OEM vendors continue to enhance the voice quality of VoIP. Recently, for example, 3Com Corp. has introduced its 3Com 3102 business phone with features that include enhanced acoustic design and an emerging wideband audio standard, which supporters say significantly improves speech transmission compared to conventional public switch telephone network (PSTN). 3Com also designed the 3102 Business Phone to support the wideband audio standards that have been developed to enhance the quality of voice conversations. A typical PSTN phone line reproduces speech at 3.3 kHz, while 3Com claims its 3102 phone can relay IP conversations at a frequency of seven kHz or higher.