• What is IP Telephony?
• Does it benefit my end-users and my company?
• Are we ready to implement IP Telephony?

IP Telephony is a form of voice communications using the Internet Protocol. The Internet is based on the Internet Protocol, and IP Telephony calls use and sometime do use the Internet to reach their destination. IP Telephony calls often use managed or private data line services to reach their destination also. With the increasing availability of IP communications across the United States and the world, and technology improvements from the network equipment manufacturers like Avaya, Nortel and Cisco, IP Telephony is a practical voice application for the following situations:

• Your current telephone switch and/or voice-mail system is at end of life and you are planning to upgrade or replace,
• You are moving to new offices and want to upgrade your voice network,
• You use Centrex services,
• You support large numbers of highly mobile professionals and want to provide them with the latest voice and messaging productivity tools,
• You are upgrading your call center and want to integrate customer and sales history information with your customer service center, or
• Your company spends more than $20,000 per month on international telephone calls between your offices in the United States and overseas.

Simply put, IP Telephony is a new technology that can save money and increase productivity in the above situations.

To determine if your company is prepared to plan, deploy and utilize IP Telephony systems, you need to answer the following questions:

1. Do we match any of the above situations?
2. Is our network infrastructure ready to add the voice applications to your local area network?
3. If not, what gaps would need to be addressed prior to deploying an IP telephony solution?

Advocate Networks can assist you by conducting an "IP Telephony Readiness Analysis" and develop an "IP Telephony Total Cost of Ownership Analysis" compared to your current telephony system. To request more information, contact us now.