White Paper

Next-generation contact centers deliver services across multiple modes of communication: voice, fax, e-mail, instant messaging, web, images, and video. Combining all these communication channels over a ubiquitous, cost-efficient IP network provides rich new features, while simultaneously lowering telecommunication costs.

The enabler is Voice over Internet Protocol, a technology that converts voice into IP packets that are transmitted, alongside traditional data packets, on the IP network. This white paper explains how moving from circuit-based voice networks to VoIP technology significantly improves customer service and productivity by exploiting open computing systems, standards-based interfaces, and decomposed functional architectures.

A fundamental element in the infrastructure of next-generation contact centers is the IP media server, which processes and integrates real-time audio, video, and fax media streams for hundreds of call agents. This white paper also describes the deployment of IP media servers in next-generation contact centers, their capabilities, and their benefits to contact-center operators, hosted service providers, system integrators, and independent software vendors (ISVs).