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A couple of years ago, I have heard the “IP telephony” for the first time. Maybe, it existed a long time ago, before I have heard about it, but I really never tuned in into what it meant until recently. I have a lot of friends in Europe, and I know that very often they call me using the VoIP (which stands for the IP telephony), and the quality of sound and their voice has always been really good. I always kind of tried to pretend that I actually know what they were talking about when they have been mentioning IP telephony, but never really looked into it. When my friends would call, they would always praise the rising development of the pbx phone system (pbx stands for private branch exchange, apparently), and how voice over IP is much easier and faster to use. They would also say that these IP telephone systems, also called business telephone systems, have higher security. It makes sense since, as I understand, businesses need to communicate securely a lot of times, a benefit that is hard to attain using regular phone systems. Hence, the VoIP security is one of the assets that attracts business customers from all over the world. As I know now, all major software companies are providing the service of IP telephony. Hence, these IP telephones are called softphones, since they rely on software to function. I believe that one of the companies that actually provides the softphone service is called Unified Communications. I have been trying for figure out how to use the IP telephony systems, only that I keep having a hard time doing that… or, I keep having not enough time to figure that out. I am currently using Skype, an Instant Messenger and a system where, using the computer, I can call any landline and any cell phone in the world. It is very convenient, since, first of all, I do not have to actually use two devices to be able to connect to people, and, second of all, I do not have to use up minutes on my cell phone, since Skype has it all! I think thought that Skype really is not a soft phone. It has the features that one could acquire to be able to use Skype as a soft phone.