This may not matter much for people who live in an all-IP world, but
VoIP has a long way to go before taking over the telephony world. Most
businesses are still using legacy
phone systems, and are either fully or partially tied to the PSTN.
As a quick aside, this conversation may not be relevant at all to
Millennials, who have only ever known the Internet, and will never be
landline telephony subscribers. The interesting part here is that their
concept of telephony is mobility, and there’s actually a lot of digital
involved here. There’s not much analog any more, though, and just like
landline, all mobile telephony will eventually be IP-based, especially
once LTE becomes the norm.
Ironically – and that’s the rub – this generation doesn’t do much
talking on their smart “phones”. Voice has always been an afterthought
on these devices, and as you know, the exploding demand for mobile
broadband isn’t about telephony – it’s completely driven by data
applications. Demographic issues are really another topic, so let’s come
back to something much more basic.
What is analog and what is digital when it comes to telephony?
The analysis here can get quite rich, but I’ll keep things succinct.
My opening comments provide context for this, as these concepts may seem
like relics to the younger generation, but are quite relevant to small
businesses trying to navigate future plans for telephony.
Visually, the easiest way to explain this is by how we tell time.
Most of us grew up with analog clocks, but today, digital displays are
just as common. As timepieces, both formats do exactly the same thing,
but in very different ways. Analog devices display time as a continuum –
the hands are in constant motion, going with the flow of time. Digital
devices break time down into discrete, even units of measure, and
display them as such. You only see the current unit of time – no more
and no less – there is no flow of information.
The differences are the same with telephony, but much harder to
visualize. Analog works on the concept of electronic pulses, such a
voice signal, which flows continuously over wires. For legacy telephony,
this would be the copper wires that make up the PSTN, and the service
is better known as POTS – plain old telephone service. The operative
word here is
plain, as this speaks to how analog differs from
digital. Analog telephony is highly reliable with great audio quality,
and is generally affordable for businesses. Conversely, POTS does not
make efficient use of network resources, has limited functionality, and
can only carry a limited amount of data.
Digital works on the principal of breaking signals down into binary
code – an endless series of “1” and “0” digits, commonly known as bits
and bytes. Telephony is but one application that been digitized, and
over time will completely replace their analog predecessors. Just think
about how music, film and print have all been digitized, and the same
holds for telephony.
Digitization is very much a product of the computer world, and is
built on the idea of managing information in the most efficient manner
possible. In that regard, digital telephony is a step forward from
analog in a few ways. Since digital signals carry more information, this
translates into richer features that businesses value, such as auto
attendant, conferencing, E911 support, dialing 9 to get an outside line,
etc. For businesses using cordless phone, digital signals are
encrypted, making them more secure. Additionally, these phones have a
longer signal range than analog, giving them more utility in
environments like warehouses.
Conclusion
Both digital and analog will be around for a while, but generally the
former is a better choice for legacy telephony decisions. You’ll pay a
bit more and the audio quality won’t be as good, but in return the
functionality will be much greater, and puts you in a better position to
consider a migration to VoIP. With digital, hybrid solutions are
common, allowing you to keep using your legacy system, but also getting
some of VoIP’s benefits. This option is much harder to do with analog
systems, and the longer you keep those, the less value they will have.
