In telecommunications, telephony (pron.: /təˈlɛfəni/ tə-LEF-ə-nee) encompasses the general use of equipment to provide communication over distances, specifically by connecting telephones to each other.[1] The technology is associated with the electronic transmission of voice, fax, or other information between distant parties using systems historically associated with the telephone, a hand-held device containing both a speaker or transmitter and a receiver.[2] It is commonly referred to as the construction or operation of telephones or telephonic systems and as a system of telecommunications in which telephonic equipment is employed in the transmission of speech or other sound between points, with or without the use of wires.[3]
To break the term down into further detail, telephony is the science of translating sound into electrical signals, transmitting them, and then converting them back to sound; that is, the science of telephones. The term is used frequently to refer to computer hardware and software that performs functions traditionally performed by telephone equipment. For example, telephony software can combine with your modem to turn your computer into a sophisticated answering service. A popular example of this type of telephony software is voice mail.[4]
Brief overview
Telephones were originally connected directly together in pairs. Each user would have a separate telephone wired to various places he might wish to reach. This became inconvenient when people wanted to communicate with many other people using telephones, so the telephone exchange was invented. Each telephone could then be connected to other local ones, thus inventing the local loop and the telephone call. Soon, nearby exchanges were connected by trunk lines, and eventually distant ones were as well.
In modern times, most telephones are plugged into telephone jacks. The jacks are connected by inside wiring to a drop wire which connects the building to a cable. Cables usually bring a large number of drop wires from all over a district access network to one wire center or telephone exchange. When the user of a telephone wants to make a telephone call, equipment at the exchange examines the dialed telephone number and connects that telephone line to another in the same wire center, or to a trunk to a distant exchange. Most of the exchanges in the world are connected to each other, forming the public switched telephone network (PSTN). By the end of the 20th century almost all were stored program control exchanges.
After the middle of the 20th century, fax and data became important secondary users of the network created to carry voices, and late in the century, parts of the network were upgraded with ISDN and DSL to improve handling of such traffic.
Today, telephony has been digitized and has merged into digital telephony, the use of digital technology in the provision of telephone services and systems. Telephone calls can be provided digitally, but are restricted to cases in which the last mile is digital, or where the conversion between digital and analog signals takes place inside the telephone. This advancement has reduced costs in communication- and improved the quality of voice services. This has been found useful for new network services (ISDN) that transfer data speedily over telephone lines.
Another important concept that has been merged into telephony is computer telephony integration, which enables computers to know about and control phone functions such as making and receiving voice, fax, and data calls with telephone directory services and caller identification. The integration of telephone software and computer systems is a major development in the evolution of the automated office. The term is used in describing the computerized services of call centers, such as those that direct your phone call to the right department at a business you're calling. It's also sometimes used to describe the ability to use your personal computer to initiate and manage phone calls (in which case you can think of your computer as your personal call center).[5] CTI is not a new concept and has been used in the past in large telephone networks, but only dedicated call centers could justify the costs of the required equipment installation. Primary telephone service providers are offering information services such as automatic number identification, which is a telephone service architecture that separates CTI services from call switching and will make it easier to add new services. Dialed Number Identification Service (DNIS) on a scale is wide enough for its implementation to bring real value to business or residential telephone usage. A new generation of applications (middleware) is being developed as a result of standardization and availability of low cost computer telephony links.
Recent developments
The term's scope has been broadened with the advent of the different new communication technologies. In its broadest sense, the terms encompasses phone communication, Internet calling, mobile communication, faxing, voicemail and video conferencing. Telephony's initial idea returns to POTS, (an acronym for "plain old telephone service") technically called the PSTN (public-switched telephone network).
This system is being fiercely challenged by and to a great extent yielding to Voice over IP (VoIP) technology, which is also commonly referred to as IP Telephony and Internet Telephony. IP telephony is a modern form of telephony which uses the TCP/IP protocol popularized by the Internet to transmit digitized voice data. Also, unlike traditional phone service, IP telephony service is relatively unregulated by government. In the United States, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) regulates phone-to-phone connections, but says they do not plan to regulate connections between a phone user and an IP telephony service provider.Using the Internet, calls travel as packets of data on shared lines, avoiding the tolls of the PSTN. The challenge in IP telephony is to deliver the voice, fax, or video packets in a dependable flow to the user. Much of IP telephony focuses on that challenge.[6]
Social Context Cues Theory
The Social Context Cues Theory is a model to measure the different types of communication and how they maintain the non-verbal cues that are present in face to face interactions. There are a number of different cues that are examined such as the physical context, different facial expressions, body movements, tone of voice, touch and smell. The telephone filters out different context cues that aid in communication.
There are a number of different cues that may be lost with the usage of telephone. There is not equal understanding of the different social context which is occurring around the opposite party. The other party is not able to identify the body movements, touch and smell. There are all communicated with face to face interaction but with telephone usage it is filtered out. Although we see this diminished ability to identify social cues Wiesenfeld, Raghuram, and Garud point out that there is a value and efficiency to the type of communication for different tasks. They examine work places in which different types of communication such as the telephone are more useful than face to face interaction.
The expansion to mobile phones has created a different filter of the social cues than the land line telephone. The use of texting and other messaging on the mobile telephone has created a sense of community. In The Social Construction of Mobile Telephony it is suggested that each phone call and text message is more than an attempt to converse. Instead it is a gesture which maintains the social network between family and friends. Although there is a loss of certain social cues through telephones with mobile phones there is a creation of different cues understood by different groups. There are different language additives that are used to confirm a message that is being sent.
See also
 | Telecommunications portal |
References
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- Misdialed call
- Nuisance call
- Phone tag
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