What is Voice over IP?

Posted by yourlocaltechguy on Feb 18, 2011 in Articles | 0 comments

Voice over Inter­net Pro­to­col, or VoIP, as it is also known, is a com­bi­na­tion of tele­phonic tech­nol­ogy with Inter­net appli­ca­tions.  This rapidly advanc­ing tech­nique is used in a num­ber of appli­ca­tions, includ­ing desk­top IP phones, mobile VoIP–enabled hand­held devices, and gate­ways. (Skype , Von­age etc) What is par­tic­u­larly remark­able about the growth of the voice over IP indus­try is the fact that the Inter­net was orig­i­nally designed for pur­poses not related to voice communications.

Indeed, voice com­mu­ni­ca­tions were han­dled effec­tively by pub­lic switched tele­phone net­works (PSTNs) and cel­lu­lar net­works.  The very nature of the Inter­net used as it was for asyn­chro­nous data com­mu­ni­ca­tion made it unfa­vor­able for the voice com­mu­ni­ca­tions indus­try.  Other fac­tors play­ing a role in this include the loss and retrans­mis­sion of data pack­ets and no spe­cific band­width ded­i­cated for each user.  Unlike tele­phonic net­works such as PSTNs and the cel­lu­lar indus­try, the Inter­net is not con­trolled by a sin­gle cen­tral­ized entity for coor­di­na­tion pur­poses.  Real-time com­mu­ni­ca­tion ser­vices pow­ered by the Inter­net should thus prove highly unlikely or at the very least challenging.

How­ever, Voice over IP tech­nol­ogy appears to have evolved to become part of busi­nesses and homes around the world, and finan­cially it is doing increas­ingly well annu­ally, and pro­jec­tions for the future are rosy.  In North Amer­ica alone VOIP will be over a $20 bil­lion indus­try this year. Wired IP phones, as well as mobile IP phones and pri­vate phones within homes have also proved pop­u­lar with the public.

Pop­u­lar Rea­sons for Voice Over IP

Sev­eral rea­sons have been cited for the pop­u­lar­ity of VoIP sys­tems, despite all the chal­lenges fac­ing it.

* Reduced total cost of ownership

* More effi­cient net­work utilization

* Greater oper­a­tional flexibility

* New ser­vices enhanc­ing end-user productivity

The first advan­tage is made pos­si­ble by the fact that the Inter­net is an open net­work, offer­ing wider oppor­tu­ni­ties to more voice ser­vice providers.  Thus com­pe­ti­tion is encour­aged, which low­ers prices.  Dis­counts can also be made pos­si­ble via cable and satel­lite ser­vices, and sub­scrip­tions of var­i­ous kinds can then also be offered.  Most impor­tant per­haps is the fact that dis­tinc­tions between long– and local dis­tance van­ish with Inter­net tech­nol­ogy.  Thus voice over IP tech­nol­ogy would enable the voice ser­vice can save on long-distance calls.

More effi­cient net­work uti­liza­tion is achieved by band­width effi­cien­cies made pos­si­ble by  voice over IP.  Again cost is reduced and qual­ity of ser­vice is increased.  The elim­i­na­tion of silence is for exam­ple one of the fac­tors con­tribut­ing to the increased effi­ciency of band­width use.  This means that Voice over IP con­trasts with other tele­phony ser­vices in that band­width is allo­cated only accord­ing the time used for speak­ing, rather than for the times dur­ing which there is silence.  This sys­tem is thus more flex­i­ble than PSTNs and cel­lu­lar ser­vices, and can thus also be applied with greater effi­ciency, not leav­ing a large amount of the net­work unused as a result of the inevitable silences in voice conversations.

Lim­ited Time Res­i­den­tial Offer – 2 for 1 Phone Lines. No Acti­va­tion Fee!

Voice over IP tech­nol­ogy is not only flex­i­ble in terms of tech­ni­cal effi­ciency, but also in terms of advan­tages for indi­vid­u­als and orga­ni­za­tions.  Uni­fied mes­sag­ing for exam­ple enables users to access mes­sages in the form of voice mail, e-mail, faxes, and video via a sin­gle sys­tem.  This saves a large amount of time for con­sumers.  Fur­ther voice over IP devices from which the con­sumer may choose include Desk­top IP screen phones and wire­less IP phones.  These two devices could also be com­bined, result­ing in a mobile VoIP with a sta­tion­ary base sta­tion.  Cost effi­ciency becomes an increas­ingly impor­tant fac­tor with regard to con­fer­enc­ing capa­bil­i­ties.  VoIP tech­nol­ogy can there­fore be applied in a vari­ety of ways for max­i­mum cost effi­ciency, as well as max­i­mum ben­e­fit of use.