Perhaps 2014 is the year that companies will resolve to ditch overpriced, complicated phone systems and switch to a platform that is more efficient, cost-effective and beneficial. With IP telephony offering the features that it does, it’s no wonder that businesses of all sizes are making the switch, but these well-oiled systems are no good without the right hardware to make it all work.

That’s where IP phones play an integral part in the overall IP telephony scheme. From low cost to portability and feature-rich solutions, a business’ reputation relies on not good, but excellent communications. IP phones come with features like call forwarding, call waiting, voicemail, caller ID and three-way calling, so selecting the right phone from an IP phone maker is a key step to using IP telephony to its fullest potential.

Businesses can see a lot in savings when using IP phones, not to mention they are designed with ergonomics and plenty of features, giving users easy access to the advanced desktop applications enabled by an IP system.

The New Year saw Panasonic (News - Alert) make headlines with its KX-NT550 Series of IP Telephones, which are now powered by DSP Group’s DVF99 VoIP SoC solution.

According to news outlets, the DVF99 is powered by two ARM (News - Alert) processors for robust application and advanced voice processing as well as embedded Audio Front End.

"DSP Group's DVF99 SoC delivers outstanding price-performance to our end users," said Jan Markus Jahn, director of visual and communication system solutions at Panasonic Europe. "DSP Group (News - Alert)'s VoIP technology has enabled us to quickly deploy HD voice IP phones across regions where there is a high demand for superior levels of voice quality.”

IP phones also make it possible to make long distance calls over the Internet. By registering with an ITSP, there are no additional call charges when you use the IP network for calling between the branches.

IP phones take integration many steps forward. You can have a softphone right on your computer, you can click on a phone number embedded on a webpage to make an outgoing call through your corporate PBX (News - Alert), or you can receive e-mail notifications of your voicemails.

Given all of the attractive features, it’s worth considering moving towards an IP system with IP phones as the means to access all the benefits.