VoIP and the Future of Telephony

With the dawning of a new age of pervasive computing, there is a greater requirement for the exchange of data to be made possible between computing assets that are connected to a network. Interactions require an exchange of various multimedia formats as well as the provision of enhanced services including instant messaging and presence management. There is, therefore, a need for a converged network that is capable of carrying both voice and multimedia in digitised form. Packet networks that use the internet protocol have emerged as a solution for this requirement and voice needs to be sent over such packet networks, with VoIP technology having emerged as an important technoogy. This report takes a look at VoIP networks and comes with a bibliography of 164 sources for those interested in further research on the topic.