VoIP webphones

This article is a basic introduction about webphone technology. It contains the basic knowledge concerning webphones so as you could decide that you will need one for your company.

Webphones are PC to Phone services that use VoIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol) technology and a web browser to make calls over the Internet. These applications allow to benefit from the less expensive VoIP services that help save more than traditional phone services especially in regard to long distance and international calls. If your computer is connected to the Internet you can instantly use web phone services (Figure 1).

basic concept of webphone
Figure 1 - Basic concept of webphone technology

Webphones are client-server applications as the audio data (or video data for that matter) cannot be transferred between two clients. The client solutions can be made by Flash or Silverlight technology, you can choose your favorite or you can implement both as a good server application can handle both solutions at the same time.

Learn how you can develop webphones with Ozeki SIP SDK

When you want to have a webphone, you can decide the purpose of use. There are so-called click-to-call webphones that are capable of calling only one "number". In this case the client only contains two buttons, one for starting and one for stopping the call and they can only start a call towards one target client.

The other version of webphone applications is a fully featured softphone solution that can be embedded in your web page. In this case you have a full keypad and can call more than one numbers. You can of course determine the targets that can be called.

The webphone server's functionality mainly consists of accepting client connection request, establishing lines between the clients and transferring the data streams between the clients. It can also record the calls if it is your purpose.

Advantages of webphone technology

The webphone technology provides you the possibility of embedding a VoIP solution into your web page. This phone client can be used by any visitor of your page. This makes customer service and communication easier and cheaper.

You can make your customers' life easier with a click-to-call webphone as they only need to press a button to reach your customer service. With this solution you can directly communicate with your customers and help them with their problems instantly.

You can make your company's work more effective with a fully featured embedded softphone as your employees can call each other from the web page, while the customers can also use the softphone features well as they can choose the SDA (service desk agent) according to the problem they have.

Summary

This article gave you a brief introduction about the basic terms related to webphone technology. Now you are completely familiar with the basics and can think about your own webphone solution for making your company communication more effective.

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