Explain VoIP

Voice over IP was introduced to me over a year ago by a friend who was already using the service because she travels a lot. Because of my work, most of my friends and family live in other cities and it costs me long distance to make phone calls during the day or night.

Long distance calling cards, making phone calls using my computer and the Internet, dialing certain numbers before I could make the long distance call and more. I was already set up with home phone and a cell phone. To make calls on my cell phone was absurb, the home phone was fine, but the package my local telephone company had me locked in to limited me to when I could make calls.

Voip Definition

VoIP is short for Voice over IP. Other terms for VoIP also include IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband Telephony, Broadband Phone, Voice over Broadband, Voice over Internet Protocol, Digital Phone Service, Cable Phone Service, Managed IP Telephony and so on. Find out more in our 'How VoIP works' section.

Many industry experts see Voice over IP as a leading-edge technology
for the future in telecommunication.

Who are the main users of VoIP service?

* Residential home users
* Small Business or Home Office

Voip Tips Recent Voip Documents, Articles, Information & Tips

Research Before You Buy VoIP
VoIP and Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), rely on switching the telephone call through the fastest connection. Like all new technical skills, VoIP continues to improve and the result is better call quality and service levels. For years standard telephone lines have used a circuit switching network to transfer telephone calls, but VoIP technical knowledge uses something called packet switching instead where audio is converted into packets of data that are sent over the internet

Broadband Gives You Access To The Internet, Phone and TV
Digital Subscriber Lines, or DSL uses the existing customer phone lines to provide internet or intranet access to businesses and homes using high-speed broadband technology of varying levels. But even with all the technology that has gone into the making of the Internet, there seems to be more to be expected than has been seen. It's easy to understand why; the technology industry defines it in different ways as well.

What Makes VoIP So Much Cheaper Than Traditional Phone Calls?
VoIP is now firmly established in business, going from strength to strength every year. All manner of VoIP deals exist for the individual consumer through to small or medium sized businesses and also the largest corporations. One key aspect of the popular rise of this mode of communication has been price.

Fundamentally, calls are far cheaper with VoIP than when using traditional phones due to a different cost base. Costs are shared with the computer network.

Circuit-switched calls associated with typical phone systems have ports at each of the originating and receiving switches that are tied up that are tied up for the calls duration. With VoIP virtual circuits exist that enable available network bandwidth to be more efficiently used. Both voice and data are efficiently integrated, great bandwidth consolidation results.

The equipment that enables the internet to function is taken advantage of by VoIP. VoIP protocols and hardware are typically off-the-shelf, developed by various vendors and interchangeable.

Scalability is far easier with VoIP since traditional phone networks have circuit switches that mean they are geographically limited, each service area requiring a switch. VoIP can involve soft switches installed at a regional level enabling numerous markets to use it, only limited quantities of local equipment being required.
Companies use VoIP so that call charges between their own offices are gotten rid of. This is achieved by the implementation of their own data networks for allowing inter-office calls. VoIP is also used for reducing the costs of calls made outside of the company by carrying them to the nearest network point before transferring them to the PTSN. An alternative to the PTSN therefore exists, and this can be continuously developed and scaled to fit the company's requirements.

Two networks are harder to manage than one. Additionally, exchanges with VoIP are centered around software, not hardware. Software is far easier to configure, alter and maintain. Substantial savings can be made, for example, through fewer required staff and admin costs, changing, adding or moving circuits for telephony heavily improved.

Service providers can also benefit hugely from using VoIP. Where traditional phone services use telephone switches, high specification PC servers run computer applications for VoIP, this allows smaller costs for the company delivering the service.

Albeit there are still certain areas to improve upon with VoIP, e.g. the requirement for good quality equipment and complicated user instructions, this technology looks set to stay and improve yet more in years to come.

VoIP lets you communicate through the Internet
In a world struggling to discover new and cost-effective ways to communicate, VoIP technology comes as exactly what household users and businessmen have been in desperate search of. VoIP is actually Internet telephony and is considered in some ways a novelty. Even so, the growing demand for services based on VoIP technology is justified by the multitude of advantages this software application has to offer.
No matter the situation, people will always feel the need to communicate. So if this is the case, why not do it faster and cheaper? VoIP is a modern software application that is far better than the traditional telephony service and this is why more and more people prefer it. Basically, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is a technology that allows calls to be made over the Internet, being at the same time efficient and easy to use.

To use VoIP, a high-speed Internet connection is required. Experts advise against using dial-up because it doesn't have the capacity to transfer voice without affecting its quality. Remember that VoIP is a technology based on the main feature of the Internet: speed, but it does not leave aside quality either.

VoIP was originally developed to provide voice communication between computer users in different locations. Now, people using VoIP technology can call any telephone in the world and can receive calls on telephone sets connected to the Internet. Internet telephony is no longer a dream and the ability to make local and global long distance calls is what mainly attracts more and more customers.
Apart from household users, large companies choose VoIP to communicate in order to reduce their communication's budget. By consulting their Internet Telephony Service Provider, they are informed about the almost endless benefits of VoIP technology. It has caller id, call waiting and even call forwarding. It also offers voice mail, email alerts for new voicemail and web access to voicemail.

VoIP is strongly connected with SIP (Session Initiation Protocol), a signaling protocol that has great significance for the telecommunications sector. It really is a response protocol, used for starting and negotiating communication between two users. SIP has related functions such as instant messaging and it is best used as a signaling mechanism. It has many advantages: stability, speed and security (encryption, authentification).

Many people, from different categories, have already been convinced that VoIP is one of the modern ways of communication. It runs with the help of the Internet, it is fast and cheap. And one of its main qualities is the prepaid phone calls option. You buy credit from the Internet Telephony Service Provider and start making calls. By doing that you have a limited time to call and you spend only what you consider it is necessary on communicating. It is quite simple - you have a fixed fee for a predetermined number of minutes.

This option of prepaid phone calls is mainly used in order to make PC to phone calls. With the help of VoIP technology you can now make PC to phone calls and even if it is not for free, the prices are quite accessible. The Internet Telephony Service Provider will make sure that you know all your options including the one with PC to phone calls.

PC to phone calls are affordable. You also do not need extra equipment or software to make PC to phone calls. In order to make PC to phone calls, you will need a computer with a sound card, microphone and a headset or speakers. The person you are trying to communicate with must have a regular phone. What happens when you make a PC to phone call is that the signal from your computer moves to a Time Phone Server and gets converted into signals for regular phones so the person with a regular phone can understand you. PC to phone calls have many advantages: lower cost rates, improved quality of calls and accessibility. PC to phone feature allows you to benefit very much from your computer. You can make calls to any telephone number you want directly from your PC and surf the web at the same time.

The PC to phone option is easy to get and calls are as secure as the ones you make from the traditional telephony service. Most important if you choose a PC to phone feature, there are no hidden taxes or fees and every cent is accounted for on the bill at the end of the month. With PC to phone, you manage your account online.
So, if you choose PC to phone option, remember that it offers the lowest rate for worldwide calling and that they have billing per second. There are many other advantages to PC to phone calls, including high quality services. The beauty of PC to phone calls lies in the fact that by using the Internet, long-distance charges imposed by the telecommunications companies are eliminated. The result is the ability to make cheap long-distance calls along with little or even no loss of call quality.

VoIP technology is constantly improving, adding more options in order to make communicating an easier action. Spe******ts work non-stop and come up with features that are more than pleasing and make Internet telephony a sound investment. When you think of VoIP, you say cost-effective, reliable and easy to use high-speed communication. It is simple to take advantage of technology if you have VoIP.