Intro to Voice Over IP

Voice over IP (VOIP) is a form of internet-based telephony which functions much like traditional phone services. VOIP's use of the internet makes it more than simply alternative to traditional calling services.

How Does It Work?

When conducting a phone conversation, your voice is digitize by either a voice over IP compatible handset, voice over IP phone line adapter or a computer. Tiny pieces of data are captured and encode from your voice as you speak, and then they are transferred as "packets" of data to your service provider -- the voice transcoding process happens on-the-fly. After your packets reach your service provider's network, they are redirected to the party on the other end of your conversation.

Advantages and Disadvantages

Cheaper calling rates draw many consumer and businesses to voice over IP. With a voice over IP plan, long distance rates simply don't apply. Subscribers pay a flat fee to their services provider to make unlimited phone calls to essentially any location that has phone or internet service.

Extras, like voicemail and caller ID, are included free in voice over IP calling plans, while you'll generally have to pay additional fees to add the services to a traditional telephone plan. Many voice over IP service providers will offer you the ability to port your number remote locations, meaning your can answer calls from your primary phone number when you're away from home.

Voice over IP phone calls are also clearer than a standard telephone systems when three-way calling or conferencing. Voice over IP calls are also compressed, which make for clearer three-way and conference phone calls.

There are, however, some drawbacks to voice over IP services. Traditional phone systems are powered by a small amount of current that runs along coaxial cable line. Voice over IP, on the other hand, more power than a coaxial cable can supply to power up the internet equipment that's need to facilitate your internet connection. What does this mean? If a power outage occurs, you can still operate a traditional telephone system. But a powerless modem would render a voice over IP system useless, unless you had a generator to supply you with backup power.

Inconsistencies in your bandwidth can affect the quality of a VOIP call, causing the conversation's audio feed to flicker in and out. If your internet service provider's network is experience heavy traffic, packets of audio may be dropped during your conversation. You'll likely not notice small bits of data being lost. But if the number of lost packets starts to stack up, it could affect the clarity of your conversation. The clarity of your call will depend on the quality of all parties involved in the conversation.

Summary

Voice over IP calling truly in the future of telecommunications, and it's already here. It's the future, because it still has room for maturation. This isn't to say that it's an unreliable alternative to traditional telephone services, but rather an allusion to the refinement of both it's weaknesses and its perks.

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A company offering telecommunications solutions including voip pbx vancouver and asterisk phone systems, also providing support through their open source call center Vancouver. Core Telecom Innovations Inc. 30 Via Renzo Drive, Richmond Hill, ON L4S 0B8, Canada +1 416-425-6111
http://www.coretel.ca

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