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Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) has become a standard way to route calls to

ID: 3670808 • Letter: V

Question

Voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) has become a standard way to route calls to remote locations for businesses that have nationwide locations and global operations. Power over Ethernet (PoE) is also a standard component of today’s business networks. Discuss why these two elements are found together in business networks. Identify and discuss the advantages and disadvantages of the PoE technology. Provide examples to support your discussion. Your initial response should be a minimum of 300 words in length.

Explanation / Answer

Voice over IP (VoIP) is a methodology and group of technologies for the delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the Internet. Other terms commonly associated with VoIP are IP telephony, Internet telephony, broadband telephony, and broadband phone service.

The term Internet telephony specifically refers to the provisioning of communications services (voice, fax, SMS, voice-messaging) over the public Internet, rather than via the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The steps and principles involved in originating VoIP telephone calls are similar to traditional digitaltelephony and involve signaling, channel setup, digitization of the analog voice signals, and encoding. Instead of being transmitted over a circuit-switched network, however, the digital information is packetized, and transmission occurs as IP packets over a packet-switched network. Such transmission entails careful considerations about resource management different from time-division multiplexing (TDM) networks.

Early providers of voice-over-IP services offered business models and technical solutions that mirrored the architecture of the legacy telephone network. Second-generation providers, such as Skype, have built closed networks for private user bases, offering the benefit of free calls and convenience while potentially charging for access to other communication networks, such as the PSTN.

Power over Ethernet (POE) is a technology that lets network cables carry electrical power. However, if the camera is POE-enabled, only the network connection needs to be made, as it will receive its electrical power from this cable as well.

POE treats each pair as a single conductor, and can use either the two data pairs or the two spare pairs to carry electrical current. Power over Ethernet is injected onto the cable at a voltage between 44 and 57 volts DC, and typically 48 volts is used.

IP phones, wireless access points, security cameras, card scanners and other devices draw power from switches through standard Ethernet cabling, thus the name "power over Ethernet."

Today, the most power a device can pull through that cable is just over 15 watts. But the IEEE is working on a standard that would boost that wattage to around 50. This will open it up to even more applications.