What is an IP Phone?

An IP Phone, also commonly known as a VoIP Phone, is a telephone designed to make and receive calls using Internet Protocol (IP) technology. Instead of using a traditional analog phone line (PSTN), it transmits your voice as digital data packets over a data network, such as your office's local area network (LAN) or the public internet.

This fundamental difference in technology gives IP phones a significant advantage in flexibility, scalability, and cost-effectiveness over their traditional counterparts, which often required complex and labor-intensive wiring.

IP phones come in several forms, all of which can be endpoints in a modern business communications system:

Desk Phones: These are hardware devices that look and feel like traditional office phones but connect to the network with an Ethernet cable instead of a standard phone jack.

Softphones: This is a software application that runs on a computer or laptop, transforming it into a fully-featured phone. Users interact with an on-screen dial pad and typically use a headset with a microphone for calls.

Mobile Apps: Many VoIP platforms offer dedicated mobile apps that turn an employee's smartphone or tablet into a business phone, allowing them to make and receive calls using their business extension from anywhere.

It's also possible to integrate older, non-IP devices into a modern system using an Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA), which converts the analog signal from a standard phone into digital IP packets.