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Speech Technology Predictions for 2006

Speech Technologies are currently saving companies hundreds of thousands of dollars in telemarketing centers. Their artificial intelligent enabled systems can answer a wide variety of questions of consumers and customers, often allowing the patron to receive the desired information without ever talking to a live operator. The industry for such is quite competitive and many niches have been cut out where small start-up companies have excelled. Speech Technologies have also become much more robust for personal tech items such as in-car GPS systems, PDAs, cell phones, digital recorders and voice activated word processing. Communicating with devices, computers and systems in natural language helps jump the barriers between man and machine. The military is also a big buyer and user of speech technologies to command and control helicopters, tanks, weapon systems, aircraft and computer systems in the new net-centric battlespace.

Speech Technologies are used to help in translations and real natural language where artificial intelligent systems help to put numerical values on levels of intensity, voice inflection, severity and need. This will help in surveillance, identification of threats and assignment of tasks to first responders when such systems become overwhelmed during emergencies.

Future Technologies are soon to be realized in predicting human intent, regional area dialect accents and determine the difference between a joke and a matter-of-fact based comment. Current projects with much promise include a computer system communicating with a human putting a manual into conversational terms and working a human thru trouble shooting during maintenance, repair and/or a crisis situation. The human computer interfaces of the robotic systems, personal technology devices and operation of expensive and complicated equipment will utilize Speech Technologies more and more. 2006 looks to be one of the most hyper-advancing years of Speech Technologies we have ever seen or “Heard!” Think on it.

“Lance Winslow” - Online Think Tank forum board. If you have innovative thoughts and unique perspectives, come think with Lance; http://www.WorldThinkTank.net/wttbbs/

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Reports presently show that the UK’s telephone number Enquiries industry is the most large of the EU. www.118118.com sell a wide range of functions including the basic that is the phone telephone number service and then other added offerings such as cinema schedules and places, train times and train and tube locations.

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Sometimes when you contact your local bank for a loan you have to fill out a long application and provide additional resources to verify your credit history. If you are just starting out with no credit and are interested in obtaining some means of credit and don’t want to go to your local bank a good option is to use a payday loan.

Most places require that you are over 18 and have a bank account. Payday loans offer a solution to help you rebuild or start building your credit. You can use the loan to pay bills or simply use it for entertainment if you are running short on additional funds.

The application process is simple and does not take much time. These loans were set for your convenience. In fact payday loans work with your payment schedule. Search for a payday loan center that meets your needs and what you are looking for. If you need to make some changes to your credit score, this would be a good stepping stone. Pay attention to the payback rates that are being offered.

Payday loans are easy for you to choose from and if you find yourself stuck for time, you can go online and fill out an application and funds will be deposited into your account quickly.

Are you looking for an easy to maintain durable flooring? Well, then laminate flooring might be the thing for you. Laminate floors often resemble the look of hardwood or marble. Yet, laminate floors are much easier to keep clean and much easier to maintenance. And best of all they are much more durable. Laminate provides a flexible look suitable for almost any room. It comes in many different colors as well at popular wood finishes. Laminate is one of the cheapest types of flooring available. It is also very easy to install. Any do it yourselfer, with the appropriate tools is capable of installing laminate floors without the help of a professional.

Laminate is a great choice if you looking to replace an existing floor that is smooth and well bonded. In fact, you most likely won’t even need to remove the original flooring. Laminate flooring isn’t actually attached to the ground. You don’t use nails, screws or pegs. However, adhesive must be used to attach one board to another. Laminate floors often change size depending on temperature and humidity. Expansion areas should be left along the outsides of the finishing flooring. This allows it to expand and contract due to temperature and humidity changes. You’ll use wall base trim to conceal the expansion areas.

Laminate flooring info in this site

Matches is now a high ended designer fashion outlet with a ton of success. Nearly eighteen years and Matches have watched themselves inflate from a single clothes fashion outlet to a string of designer clothes shops in ever trendy Notting Hill, leafy Richmond and beautiful Wimbledon along with their stunning website now as well. Each designer clothes shop has a diverse look and style. This has resulted in designer fashion outlets which are also as different and beloved as their clients. The workers’ philosophy places great importance on look and creativeness. Find the very latest Chloe Shoes at Matches, home to the hottest designer shoes.

And like tons of other designer fashion stores, Matches is forever changing and launching the hottest designers. The firm are experts at spotting and seeking out the recent essential fashion pieces in the particular time of year and consistently focus on key pieces from important clothes designers such as Temperly, Queen and Belle and the famous Dolce and Gabbana, along with further successful fashion designers and the best up and coming ones.

Both the clothes fashion outlets and the fantastic site have enjoyed tons of success; the fashion focused website is like jumping into an amazing high end designer clothes monthly magazine, it provides folks the inspiration they need to get designer clothes that can often look brilliant and feel confident in. Matches Fashion is always covered in designer fashion magazines such as In Style and The Times Magazine.

The fashion loving owners’ site offers heaps of tips to help you out. Should one cannot possibly decide which Florian dress to buy you yourself might well simply give Matches Talk Fashion a call and the fashion loving owners might well give one all the fashion advice you need. The designer fashion outlet additionally offer a service where you can sign up to a fashion clothes stylist and they will email one monthly advice on what the best trends are and the fresh fashion arrivals. You yourself might often create your own shopping list which means one could look through next season’s catalogue and choose your hottest high heels, when the items arrive in the designer fashion outlet someone should contact you to let you know they have arrived at the clothes shop for you to come and collect.

Enterprise mobility - It’s more than connecting on the go.

The new Nortel vision of mobility redefines the possibilities
for communication and collaboration in dynamic, distributed
enterprises. It’s a surprising but very real statistic: 50 to 70
percent of office space is unoccupied during normal business
hours (International Telework Association and Council). Where
are these people? Some are elsewhere in the building or visiting
another company site. Others are working at home or on the road.
With the widespread adoption of telecommuting, wireless and
various other “virtual office” technologies, this trend will
only increase. How can companies ensure that time and distance
do not become barriers to productive collaboration? What’s the
best way to enable geographically dispersed teams to work
together in ways that are natural, convenient and effective?

Ever since the adoption of the cellular phone in the 1980s, and
the surge in wireless everything in the ’90s, businesses have
answered these questions with various “mobility” technologies
(http://www.sbc-one.com/mobility/index.php), such as in-building
wireless LANs and cellular phone service. But as we take stock,
halfway through yet another decade, enterprises have only
scratched the surface of the ever-expanding possibilities. As
key standards and technologies mature and new innovations reach
the market, it’s time to raise the bar on what constitutes real
mobility for the dynamic, distributed enterprise.

Enterprise mobility must make network boundaries invisible to
the user.

Some vendors would have you believe that if you can wander
around the premises with your laptop or PDA, you have arrived…
or that mobility is achieved if you simply have wireless
communications of some sort. But in reality, this is far too
narrow a definition. Sure, wireless communications enable people
to get away without losing touch, but is the wireless device the
only way your users want to connect when away from their desks?
Chances are, even guests in your own conference rooms or visitor
offices are offered only wired Ethernet access to the Internet.
Enterprise mobility should extend seamlessly beyond the
boundaries of your company’s buildings. Users should be able to
roam across town, on the road, or around the world anywhere
within the reach of a LAN, MAN or WAN. And users should be able
to connect in many ways when they are away from their offices
such as via wireless LANs (WLANs)
(http://www.sbc-one.com/products/large/applications/mobility/wlan
2200.php), from an Ethernet jack in a hotel room over DSL or
cable modem connections from home, or someday with WiMax.

Enterprise mobility should be more than just having some way to
connect when you’re away.

Today, people carry a host of portable communication devices
laptops, pagers, PDAs, multi-mode cell phones, two-way radio
phones, etc. That’s fine and well if you don’t mind juggling a
smorgasbord of electronics. Just watch business travelers
unloading their pockets and briefcases at airport security, and
it’s easy to see that we’ve traded some inconvenience for
convenience.

Enterprise mobility should be about more than discrete mobile
services. It should be more than carrying a device for e-mail
and Web access, another for voice calls and another for urgent
alerts. Mobility should capitalize on unified applications and
multi-purpose access enabling users to not just connect, but
fully engage, from afar. A consistent, quality user experience
requires converged business applications that users can easily
access in many ways both wired and wireless.

Enterprise mobility must be secure everywhere. It does seem like
a paradox; the very openness that makes mobility applications
useful would seem to make them equally vulnerable. You need free
and easy flow across unsecured environments yet stringent
protections against unauthorized or malicious access.

Enterprise mobility can resolve these challenges with a full
array of security solutions that are easy to deploy and
inter-operate seamlessly with existing network components such
as routers, firewalls and existing authentication mechanisms.
Collectively, these three elements point to a new model of
communicating and collaborating across the dynamic,
multilocation enterprise: a consistent, reliable, secure
communications experience - anytime, anywhere and on whatever
device you are using.

Towards a new vision of enterprise mobility

If we can embrace this broader perspective of mobility,
enterprises really will achieve their stated goals of improving
productivity, reaching new markets and delivering superior
customer care. The technology enablers are here or on the very
close horizon. Here’s a sampling in the table below.

Capitalizing on these technologies, we can redefine the
possibilities. Let’s take a closer look at the three key
dimensions of a new vision of enterprise “mobility”.

Enterprise Mobility Dimension #1

Eliminate network boundaries (or at least make them invisible to
users).

Real mobility must span wired and wireless domains.

The new vision of mobility encompasses three classes of
bandwidth:

> Wired bandwidth to the user’s desktop, enough bandwidth to
support highspeed Internet access, IP Telephony and multimedia
applications

> Wireless WAN bandwidth, available just about anywhere,
embracing enterprise WLANs, public WLAN hotspots, campus and
metro wireless mesh networks and 2G and 3G public wireless
services

> Nomadic bandwidth a combination of wired and wireless
options for occasional, on-demand use by outof- office users,
who may be at home, in a hotel or at enterprise and public WLAN
hotspots

Edholm’s Law of Bandwidth observes that bandwidth in each of
these categories increases over time yet retains a constant
relationship (Phil Edholm, IEEE Spectrum, July 2004). The major
implication is that the more plentiful and economical bandwidth
becomes, the more applications naturally migrate from the
desktop to mobile campus workers, teleworkers and road warriors.

To be useful though, basic connectivity for these applications
must be natural, convenient and simple for end users, whether
they are connecting on wireless or wired devices. This ideal
capitalizes on the growing trend toward devices that have
multiple connectivity options, such as public wireless/WLAN
dualand tri-mode operation, wired Ethernet and even dial modem
in a single device.

At Nortel, we’re already making it as simple as possible to use
these different modes for wired and wireless connectivity. For
the path of last resort dial modems a method is provided
that makes it easy to select the most costeffective number to
call based on dialing phone number.

The goal is a seamless experience that transcends traditional
network boundaries. Users can roam from floor to floor in a
building or campus, across the city and around the world.
Wherever they roam, they enjoy non-disruptive voice, data and
multimedia sessions, with little or no noticeable impact as they
move around or cross networks. Dynamic network analysis
transparently determines the most applicable connection point
for data, voice and multimedia sessions.

You can achieve this ideal in progressive stages.

The first step toward this goal is a scenario whereby WLAN data
and IP Telephony users can roam across subnet boundaries in a
campus environment. IPsec mobility uses IPsec VPN
sessions/tunnels that support a persistent IPsec connection. The
connection doesn’t “break” when the user roams between
enterprise WLANs, WLAN hotspots and public wireless services.

The next step comes with the emergence of dual-mode wireless
smart phones and voice-enabled PDAs complementing public
wireless and WLAN capabilities. When loaded with IP Telephony or
multimedia clients running over IPsec VPNs, these devices will
enable on-premises users to set up and receive sessions over the
public network or an enterprise WLAN.

The final step is for seamless WLAN/public wireless roaming
services based on IP networking and Session Initiation Protocol
(SIP). With this approach, enterprises can either use their own
IP Telephony or unified communications system or subscribe to a
hosted offering from a service provider.

On the wired side, true mobility embraces IP Telephony to
simplify and enhance the user experience across network domains,
enable new levels of convergence and profoundly change the way
employees, partners and customers communicate.

Enterprise Mobility Dimension #2

Provide a consistent, highquality user experience.

Unified communications simplify today’s patchwork of devices and
services.

Mobility today is delivered in a highly fragmented world of
multiple devices, multiple phone numbers, multiple mailboxes,
multiple security procedures, device-dependent interfaces and
disjointed communication applications (such as telephony, IM and
conferencing). This scenario is further complicated by the
proliferation of mobile devices, ranging from smart phones and
PDAs to tablet PCs and laptops, running under a handful of
different operating systems. The new vision of mobility
establishes a consistent quality of experience across these
various devices, with “unified” communications that:

> Integrate presence across a broad range of activities and user
devices, such as phones, PCs, laptops and PDAs

> Converge asynchronous communications (such as e-mail, voice
mail, short message services) and synchronous communications
(such as IM, voice, video and application sharing)

> Enrich mobile communications with voice and multimedia
capabilities

“Engaged” applications redefine the possibilities for
collaboration and customer care.

With the attributes of unified communications in place,
applications can engage, not just connect. The network can
deliver critical and time-sensitive information precisely when,
where and how users need it. For example, imagine your customer
support center being able to locate and engage the specialist
that can best meet the client’s needs, drawing on a
geographically distributed pool of specialists. Imagine a supply
chain management application that brings the right people
together anytime, anywhere to resolve a supply or delivery
issue. Or a collaboration application that makes it easy for
dispersed creative teams to spawn new innovations.

The pivotal glue for this vision is SIP a signaling and
control protocol for initiating sessions between and among
users, regardless of the media being used. SIP enables
communications sessions to understand and preserve “presence”
attributes associated with a person’s location or activities.
When SIP is embedded in business telephony, users can connect
over any device anytime, anywhere.

Here are some other examples of unified communications available
today or being rolled out:

> Speech-activated voice mail, e-mail and fax handling by phone.
Handsfree access to messages allows mobile workers to remain
productive while away from the office.

> Web-based messaging and personal mailbox administration. Users
can access messages and manage their personal mailbox from any
Internet browser.

> Voice portals. Hands-free access delivers any information on
the intranet, including pricing, supply, product and financial
data.

> Speaker verification/passwords provide hands-free user
authentication or another level of security.

> Access to Web portals from public PCs (no client software
required) provides unified mail retrieval; voice mail, fax and
e-mail handling; booking and handling of conference bridges; and
multimedia collaboration with personal call routing rules.

> Location services offer location-based authentication and
privileges, locationbased presence and I/O management (such as
using a PDA to control display of detailed images on a nearby
highresolution monitor).

Applications such as these make it intuitive and easy to use
mobility applications applying technology to drive ever closer
to recreating the in-person experience.

Uses are not just connected and engaged. They’re in control.

The frenetic culture of the Internet Age brainwashes us to
believe that we must be constantly available to everyone, all
the time. The notion is that collaboration and connection must
be instant, on demand or else productivity will suffer. In
reality, this kind of neverending connectivity can stifle the
very productivity it purports to create. When employees can be
interrupted at any time, gone is the focused opportunity to
research and reflect, conduct private meetings with important
clients and dedicate one’s focus to the task at hand.

Where mobility does have the potential to over-run its users,
our vision of mobility gives users dominion over exactly how and
when their communications follow them and when they leave them
alone.

End users enjoy a high degree of control as to how their
presence is communicated (or hidden), and how incoming sessions
are handled based on caller, media used, time of day and
ultimately even on location. They have tremendous flexibility to
customize their communications to suit their work requirements,
schedule and preferences.

With our vision of unified communications, users have a single
control panel from which to access directory information, launch
and/or receive multimedia sessions, participate in multi-party
calls, initiate IM or application sharing sessions, track the
availability of coworkers (via presence) and manage their
availability (via personal agents).

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Get train information & cinema listings from our directory enquiries service. 118118 directory enquiries is presently one of the most prompt and most simple method to find the train times and your cinema listings, whether you are on the Internet or you are using your handset. We now have film information for loads of cinemas over the entire the UK and there’s no waiting in annoying programmed queues listening to useless info.

VOIP or voice over Internet Protocol is the ability to transmit
voice over the Internet to either a receiving computer,
telephone or even a mobile phone. VOIP offers an inexpensive
alternative to traditional telephones and keeps you away from
huge bills. VOIP helps you save money, especially for long
distance calls. It also enables you to talk to several people
simultaneously. It offers different services with developing
technologies. VoIP enables you to send any type of data at higher
speeds of Internet.It is increasingly becoming a great choice
for residential and business customers.Many providers offer
unlimited plans, that will give the subscriber unlimited long
distance, free calling with VOIP. VOIP promises cost savings
over traditional phone lines and thus allows you to save on your
monthly phone expenses.

VOIP is one of the coolest advancements you’ve ever been
blessed to experience. VoIP allows you to make phone calls over
the internet, using your computer, to pretty much anywhere on
the planet. the technology with VoIP has yet to progress to the
point where you will consistently experience crystal clear sound
over slower internet connections.If you currently live in an
area that hasn’t been wired for broadban
d, you shouldn’t have to wait too long for the technology to
progress to where you can enjoy a quality conversation over a
slow internet connection. However, the quality can suffer
without a high speed internet connection. VoIP services cost
less than residential phone service and much, much less than
most monthly cell phone plans.If your broadband internet company
just happens to be one of companies that currently offers VoIP
services, then its better because it would cost you higher if
used an independent or outside company for your VoIP phone
service. If your internet connection goes down you wouldn’t be
able to make or receive phone calls.Due to lack of signal
strength,your calls can also get dropped.Although it has some
drawbacks, but once you use it, you’ll not want to loose it,
especially with your bills getting lower each month.

With many people discovering the benefits of VOIP by switching
from using their land line telephones to VoIP service, VoIP
phone service providers are increasing in popularity. People are
now aware that VoIP phone services costs significantly less than
standard phone service.In today’s advanced technology world,
VOIP is expected to have a great future ahead.

How tempting is it to fix things? You know, you are passing by
one of your teams cubicles and they are doing something you know
all about. So you give a hand…

And then it’s fixed, and you feel a rosy glow all about how
you’ve ‘helped’. But who is this about, you or them.

You see, it can be so frustrating, for someone already
frustrated, when some smart-ass boss comes along to show their
superiority. In fact, after it’s fixed, all they get is a
general feeling of inadequacy. And more frustration.

And next time ythey have the same problem, they can’t remember
what they did because you did it so fast, in such a smart-assed
sort of way. They either need to wait for you to pass by again
or, well, struggle again.

As a boss, it’s easy to do something that you know how to do. In
fact it’s a big psychological boost to your little own sense of
self, when you’ve achieved something that someone else is
struggling with. So it’s a ‘nice’ feeling to be better at
something when someone else isn’t.

It’s not your fault, in fact it’s not even an action you think
consciously about, it just happens that way.

And with some bosses, it happens often. I know, I’ve done it
myself. It comes out of another emotion too. It comes out of a
sense of ‘helping’ someone in distress - it’s the ‘knight in
shining armour’ thing. And it feels good.

Yet, it has a big downside. Getting someone else out of their
‘frying pan’ gets you into another ‘fire’. Because if you get so
good at fixing other people’s problems, that’s what they’ll
expect of you. And wait for you to do it.

So, you frustrate the hell out of them because you fix things
for them all the time and then they start waiting for you to be
the problem-solver. Your ‘fixing’ everything starts to pile up
on you. You then get frustrated with them because you have such
‘useless’ employees around you.

I wonder why!

So, here’s a way to try. For someone struggling with something,
however small, use the 4S Method.

- Show - Supervise - Stand Back - Succeed

This means that you Show them how to do something, then you
watch them and Supervise as they do it, maybe they get it wrong
- if so, let them analyse why. Stand Back whilst they at last
Succeed - and then get it right forever.

This is the ‘Neither’. You get the job done right, by the person
whose job it is to get it right and then you are freed up to do
more of this.

Thus building a team of capable, fulfilled and ‘motivated to
learn more’ individuals.

No Frying Pan, no Fire and Neither of you feel bad about it.

In fact, everything is a bit rosy, after all!

Everyone knows the story of Alexander Graham Bell inventing the telephone.
There’s the story of Bell’s first words, “Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see
you,” that’s indelibly printed on our brains from childhood. However, what some
don’t know is that the telephone was developed in a similar form simultaneously
by Elisha Gray, who lost the patent battle by only a few hours in 1876.

Bell was successful primarily because he understood not only electricity and
the workings of the telegraph, but had a thorough understanding of acoustics,
which most inventors weren’t all that familiar with. While focusing on the
mechanics, they weren’t taking into account the unique qualities of sound that
made transmitting speech so much more complex than simple clicks of the
telegraph. With a background in music and acoustics, Bell could address these
issues more readily.

Chance happening plays role in acceptance

The telephone may not have gained such wide acceptance if, as if by
serendipity, the Centennial Exhibition hadn’t been scheduled in Philadelphia for
only a few months later. Tucked away at a small table in an obscure corner, Bell
did not hope to garner much attention until he drew the attention of the Emperor
Dom Pedro de Alcantara of Brazil, who was amazed by the invention. Immediately,
all the scientists in attendance were clamoring to study the new invention.

At first telephones were seen as a fad that were more for entertainment
purposes than commerce, until newspapers and banks began grudgingly using them
to convey information quickly by virtue of free phone installations. The
publicity from this made them immediately more popular and soon phone exchanges
were set up in most major cities.

In the 1880’s metallic circuits were developed that allowed for long distance
calls, which grew in popularity slowly because of the cost. Later, in the
1890’s, this was overcome by the development of the party line so that families,
especially in rural areas, could split the cost of a line.

Direct dial overcomes operator interference

Until 1891, calls were put through by exchange operators, but this was done
away with by a Kansas City man who invented the direct dial system because he
was paranoid enough to think that the operators were sending his business calls
to competitors. He was an undertaker.

In 1927, the first transatlantic call was made over radio waves. During both
World Wars, telephone advancements grew by leaps and bounds because of heavy
spending by the Defense Department. Innovations resulting from war-time
experiments included Bell Telephone’s first mobile telephone system, which
connected moving vehicles to landlines via radio. Surprisingly, this was as
early as 1946, a year that also saw the development of coaxial cables for major
transmission improvements with less interference.

In the 1960’s, telephones were so much a part of the landscape that Bell
Telephone could no longer continue to use the alpha-numeric codes for telephone
exchanges (remember using numbers like Normandy-7610?) and switched to longer,
all numeric numbers. At the same time, transatlantic cables were being laid to
accommodate the increased demand for intercontinental telephone communication.

One of the most important shifts in telephone history was the launch of the
first telephone satellite in July of 1962. TelStar was a joint venture between
Bell and NASA and revolutionized telephone communications like nothing that had
come before. Satellites in geosynchronous orbit could now be used for long
distance calls without the need for laying endless lines of cable and did away
with the problem of frequent cable damage and repair.

Fiber optics move sound at the speed of light

Fiber Optic Cables were first used for telephone transmission in 1977, when
both GTE and AT&T laid Fiber Optic lines in Chicago and Boston. By the
mid-1980’s, fiber optic cable was the preferred method of telephone
transmission, since it could carry a much higher volume of calls with much less
interference. Since it also carries information faster and farther and resists
lightning strikes, the advantages soon became obvious to the computer and other
industries as well.

When the United States government deregulated telephone service, AT&T, the
telephone communications giant, was immediately inundated with competition from
MCI, Sprint and hundreds of smaller local companies and soon fiber optic lines
were snaking around the country, being dropped along side natural rights of way
such as gas lines and railroads. Telephone costs dropped and a new telephone
service revolution had begun.

Cellular phones take the next step forward

In 1973, Dr. Martin Cooper of Motorola Corporation made what was probably the
first cellular telephone call on a portable handset called the Dyna-Tac. After a
successful test run, he took it to New York to introduce the technology to the
public. By 1977, the cell phone had gone public, but these first models were
cumbersome and generally used by those who were used to keeping in touch by
two-way radio. By no means were they considered something that everyone should
have or even want. They were initially considered a replacement for the mobile
phones already in existence. The difference with cellular was the use of small
“cells” for range of service in order to increase the capacity of calls handled,
dramatically increasing the number of calls capable of being made by
mobile/cellular phone at one time in one area.

The first cellular services used analog technology operating at 800 Megahertz
in a continuous wave. Over time, the power needs of callers increased and the
industry standard moved to a more reliable 1850 MHz with PCS. In 1988, the
Cellular Technology Industry Association was formed to develop guidelines for
cellular service providers and steer developments and improvements in the cell
phone industry. There are now well over 60 million cellular telephone customers,
a staggering number for a service that has been commercially available for only
thirty years.

Next stop, digital!

While the majority of users still have analog cell phones, the new frontier
is definitely digital. Rather than using a continuous wavelength for
transmission, digital chops up the wave into discreet bytes of information and
sends them in “pulses” of data. The up side to this is that digital signals tend
to be more secure when transmitted than analog. It’s also a more efficient use
of bandwidth and provides clearer, cleaner sound quality. If you transmit video
clips or photos (like with the new video or picture cell phones) digital is much
faster, and will be the choice hands-down when you’re integrating the cell phone
and the Internet.

There is a caveat; however, in that digital currently transmits through three
different technologies. This can lead to some problems with coverage. If you are
on a TDMA (time-division multiple access) system and traveling in an area that
has digital coverage that’s CDMA (code-division multiple access), you could run
into problems.

The answer for now is the combined analog-digital technology that providers
are touting. This offers the great coverage of analog when needed and the great
speed and quality of PCS/digital.

Telephone conferencing arrives on the scene

The first real “audio conferencing” could be said to have been the party
lines set up back in the early years of telephone use, although at that time the
advantages of a party line for multiple users weren’t grasped except as a way to
save money. In fact, the fact that several people in different locations could
pick up and talk on the line at the same time was considered a nuisance and was
actively discouraged as “eavesdropping.”

When party lines were phased out, the idea of multiple conversations were
forgotten until businesses began seeking ways to carry on meetings via telephone
in order to save travel expenses and link teams together over distances. The
concept was revisited with new parameters; this time restrictions needed to be
in place, and the lines had to be open only when needed and desired.

Soon companies around the globe were offering to coordinate conference
calling for companies based on either flat rates, monthly fees or based on call
volume, with a trained operator setting up connections between each participant
on a dedicated line so that groups of up to ten could talk simultaneously. Their
bulk long-distance rates enabled them to pass savings along to their customers.

Telephone manufacturers like Polycom, AT&T and Panasonic also jumped on the
bandwagon, developing office telephone systems that enabled users to dial a
client, put them on hold then call up a third party and connect the three
callers into one conversation.

The Internet soon brought competition, however, to audio conferencing and the
cost of long distance telephone calls. Even with lower rates based on bulk
purchasing and group rates, Internet telephony is gaining ground on traditional
telephone audio conferencing because it’s so much cheaper.

VoIP, the Internet and the eventual demise of traditional telephone
conferencing

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) soon became popular for telephone
communications because it avoids the toll charges of standard telephone
connections. Dial-up internet connections provided near “toll-quality” voice
communications, and with broadband connections the increased data throughput
enabled businesses to use VoIP in conjunction with other Internet services like
data sharing and video conferencing. With the money saved using VoIP, it seems
obvious that using analog phone lines for telephone conferencing will soon be a
thing of the past.

Most VoIP audio conferencing technologies give you the capability to network
multiple groups or parties from different geographical locations, making it
simple to hold an international sales staff meeting. Web conferencing solutions
using VoIP from companies such as Voxwire, TTCGlobalTalk and VoiceCafe can
provide almost unlimited conference room seats for a meeting, limited only by
the bandwidth of the VoIP server.

As the Internet becomes a standard part of any suite of office equipment,
analog telephone services, audio conferencing and their equipment will soon
become obsolete. Audio conferencing will be done more and more on the Internet
using VoIP based web conferencing services offering powerful collaborative
services that go beyond just simple voice communications. For placing calls,
digital phone services like Vonage and Packet8 that implement VoIP over
broadband connections will step in to offer less expensive, more comprehensive
calling options to meet the needs of individuals and companies going into the
future.

This article on the “The History of the Telephone” reprinted with
permission.
Copyright © 2004-2005 Evaluseek Publishing.

About the Author
Lucy P. Roberts is a successful freelance writer providing practical information and advice for consumers and businesses about everything related to audio conferencing services and VoIP providers. Her numerous articles include tips for saving both time and money; product reviews and reports; and other valuable insights for persons searching the Internet for information about how VoIP works and related topics.