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16 of 16 persons found the following review helpful.
Good choice for investigating VoIP for your organization…
By Thomas Duff
It seems like Voice over Internet Protocol, aka VoIP, is starting to become much more mainstream. Not only are businesses switching over, but now you may set up your home phone access to use VoIP (aka “broadband”) technology. Ted Wallingford has done a nice occupation in explaining the business side of the future prospects or potentials in the book Switching to VoIP – A Solutions Manual for Network Professionals.
Contents: Voice and Data – Two Separate Worlds?; Voice over Data – Many Conversations, One Network; Linux as a PBX; Circuit-Switched Telephony; Enterprise Telephone Applications; Replacing the Voice Circuit with VoIP; Replacing Call Signaling with VoIP; VoIP Readiness; Quality of Service; Security and Monitoring; Troubleshooting Tools; PSTN Trunks; Network Infrastructure for VoIP; Traditional Apps on the Converged Network; What Can Go Wrong?; VoIP Vendors and Services; Asterisk Reference; SIP Methods and Responses; AGI Commands; Asterisk Manager Socket API Syntax; Glossary; Index
I think the biggest thing to keep in mind when approaching this book is the target audience. While there are a few books out there on “internet telephones” that talk to the consumer, this isn’t one of them. The tag line of “for Network Professionals” is the key here. While you don’t have to be a network guru to read this book, some level of familiarity with network and telephony conceptions would help. Someone either working with the communication schemes in a company or heading up a communications division would be a perfective match here. You’d probably even do alright if you just have an interest in the subject, as Wellingford does a good occupation taking what may be complex material and making it understandable. An admirable task in itself…
What makes this book stand out from other books I’d suppose to see is that it doesn’t just dwell on jargon and theory. There are a number of projects included in the book so you may get your hands dirty actually working with the technology. Add to that the fact that the author uses an open source PBX scheme called Asterisk for the exercises. So now you have no reason in terms of cost for not diving right in.
Although I’m not inevitably the target audience for this book, I’d have no problem recommending it to someone looking for material that covers this subject. The book is very well written, and after finishing it you will have to have a very firm understand of the essentials. You might even recognise sufficient to commence yourself on your next career path… 
16 of 16 persons found the following review helpful.
Pretty Good
By Darin Rand
As the telcom manager for a rather huge enterprise (45,000 users) I undertake to keep up on the respective books on VoIP and this one is pretty good. It is designed towards someone who is welleducated in regards to voice and data but not inevitably someone how is an expert in either subject. It likewise does a very good occupation of not focusing on any one type of technology but covers H.323, SIP and Cisco amid a good deal of others and gives you a good sense of each flavor that is available. I would commend it for anybody looking to deploy VoIP.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
A very indepth introduction
By orangekay
I can’t say this book will answer each question you might have regarding each piece of VoIP hardware on the market today, but it does a gorgeous good occupation of building an understanding of the core conceptions shared amongst all the brand names so that you may make the jump from frequent to specific without too much hair pulling. If any specific product is given more attention than others, it’s Asterisk, but that’s not only welcome, it’s unavoidable given the subject matter. The treatment it receives here likewise beats the everloving tar out of the O’Reilly book committed to Asterisk exclusively.
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