Boeing makes call for Web phones

Boeing Co. has decided to hang up its traditional phones and instead use Internet technology for communications worldwide.

With 157,000 employees and operations around the globe, the Chicago-based plane maker and defense contractor is the biggest company to embrace so-called internet voice technology, which allows it to transmit voice, data and video on a single network.

By Jon Van
Tribune staff reporter

http://www.chicagotribune.com/technology/chi-040714boeing,1,3189335.story?coll=chi-business-hed

Boeing employees are unlikely to notice the difference. Their phones will still ring and they’ll continue to talk on what look like regular phones.

Businesses have led the way in adopting the technology, which has been around for about a decade. But most early adopters have been small- to medium-sized operations. Large enterprises like Boeing have mostly taken a go-slow attitude, waiting until all the bugs are worked out.

Boeing’s move will give other large businesses the confidence needed to take the plunge themselves, analysts predicted.

Consumer use of the technology is limited. Vonage, a new carrier specializing in VoIP, serves more than 200,000 consumers, which is barely a blip among 300 million wired and wireless lines in the nation.

But VoIP has clearly caught the industry’s imagination. AT&T Corp. will roll out VoIP to 100 markets this year and other traditional phone companies are making the transition to Internet telephony.

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