
By: Doug Mohney with VoIP News
Everyone values privacy, and nobody wants to have an unwanted third party listening in on a conversation, regardless of the content. Voice over IP (VoIP) solutions offer several ways to ensure a confidential discussion, but callers should be aware of caveats when it comes to claims of secure calls.
The analog public switched telephone network (PSTN) provides the benchmark for gauging how secure phone calls are. Most PSTN users are assured that conversations are private because the local phone company owns and operates the vast majority of the equipment involved in moving calls. Conversations traveling through the PSTN are not encrypted, but a law enforcement or national security agency needs to get permission from the courts to listen in on, or wiretap, conversations.
For a larger organization or business, voice security becomes more complex. Although calls are moved in and out of the office through a service provider and onto the PSTN, the organization’s own phone system adds another layer of complexity for voice transport. An improperly secured or unmanaged internal phone system provides potential opportunities for misuse, be it a traditional private branch exchange (PBX) or a modern IP PBX.
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