Death of a phone system: an Internet viewpoint on computer telephony integration

Computer telephony integration (CTI) holds the promise of changing the way in which we use our phones and computers. The Internet has always been ready for voice, in fact it is already ready for video. It is only now with the introduction of high speed broadband technologies like ATM, 100 Mbps LANs, and FDDI can one introduce this multimedia on the Internet. The author describes the state at which the telephone industry is currently in, including a description of two popular telephony standards; TAPI and TSAPI, why the Internet phone is a prelude of what is to come and finally a high level description of the virtual phone system which has the potential to replace most business phone systems.