A traveler sits in her hotel room at the end of a long day, watching television and getting ready to order room service. She depresses an icon on her phone. A traveler sits in her hotel room at the end of a long day, watching television and getting ready to order room service. She depresses an icon on her phone. This IP phone, with a visual display and touch-screen capabilities, interacts with the hotel room-service application and displays the full menu on her phone. She makes her selections by touching icons, which updates her requests in the hotel database. After making her selections, she depresses another icon and leaves a detailed message asking that they go "light" on the mayo for her sandwich and that they bring extra croutons for the salad. Her voice message is subsequently "attached" electronically to her order.

In the hotel kitchen, the phone rings, goes off-hook and through the speakerphone plays a pre-recorded message indicating that a new room-service order has been placed. The kitchen employees can access the order visually on the phone or on the computer terminal. A minute later, our traveler's phone rings and displays a visual confirmation of her order with expected time of delivery. The options are limitless.

The hotel did not spend valuable dollars on a paper menu. The hotel did not restrict itself from seasonal offerings just because it did not want to print a new menu. The hotel did not have customers "waiting in queue" on the phone to place their order. In all, the customer has a great experience, and the hotel has saved money while providing a better experience to its clientele. Such is the power of IP telephony. This is not a hypothetical concept. This is an example of an application that exists today.

IP telephony deployments are underway worldwide, with companies realizing that convergence applications offer opportunities to achieve key initiatives. The applications are taking front stage as companies begin to understand that the most tangible benefit of a migration to IP telephony