If you have been paying large long distance phone bills, it’s time to introduce you to the VOIP basics. Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP or VoIP) is the latest telecommunications internet technology. It will allow you to make long distance calls over your internet connection, bypassing most, or all of you your long distance provider’s charges.
However, several large telecommunications companies have caught on to the growing trend for consumers to bypass their charges, and have reacted by offering packaged services that include your regular, local phone line service and the VOIP service that will let you place calls over the internet.
When discussing VOIP basics, it’s important to realize that there are actually 3 types of VOIP technologies that are currently in use. The first is called ATA or Analog Telephone Adapter technology. The ATA technologydoes exactly what it sounds like; it takes the analog signal on your regular telephone line and translates it into a digital signal. T
hat digital signal is then sent via the internet. This is the type of service that the large telecommunications providers are offering. They will mail you the ATA and you can set it up easily on your own.
Another of the technologies that is necessary for understanding VOIP basics still has to do with the phone itself. Instead of using an adaptor to change a regular phone into a VOIP compatible one, you purchase a phone that is designed for making VOIP calls. But that phone won’t plug into a regular phone jack (RJ-11). It will have to be plugged into an Ethernet connection (an RJ-45 jack or a spot on your router).
The necessary hardware and software to make a VOIP call is included in the phone itself.
The third technology involved in learning VOIP Basics is the most exciting for the average consumer, as it doesn’t require a monthly service charge from a provider in order to make free business long distance calls. It is computer-to-computer VOIP service. In this case, you download free or purchase low-cost software that turns your computer into the phone.
In addition to the software, you’ll need speakers so you can hear the other party, a microphone so you can speak to them, a sound card in your computer, and a preferably high-speed internet connection so the signal can travel fast enough to avoid delays in what you or the other party hears.
The person you call doesn’t need to be talking to you over a computer; a regular phone will work just fine. You can use the service on your end to make calls to anyone, anywhere without a charge.
Now that we’ve looked at the VOIP or also know as voice over internet protocol, you might be interested in trying it for yourself. But what you don’t realize is that you most likely already are.
Telephone companies have been using the technology for several years in order to route the mass number of calls they receive more efficiently over their networks.
But to try VOIP at home, download software at sites such as skype site. If you already have the needed items mentioned above (speakers, microphone, sound card and high-speed internet connection), you can be making calls in as little as 5 minutes.
By: Van Theodorou
Posts Tagged ‘Long Distance Provider’
Learning the Basics of VoIP
January 10th, 2010VOIP Considerations
October 14th, 2009
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is changing the way that we look at phone service. The relatively new technology is quickly becoming the norm in many homes across the world. But a variety of VOIP considerations should be explored before you take advantage of the technology.
It allows a caller to make long distance calls without having to pay much, or anything for them. Combine the VOIP technology with a broadband, or high speed, internet access line, and VOIP provides an easy, inexpensive way to make phone calls all over the world. However, there are still some disadvantages of VOIP – especially when it comes to using the technology for functions beyond the one caller to one caller scenario.
VOIP considerations for you to examine start with understanding how the technology works in comparison with traditional phone service. With traditional phone service, your long distance phone calls are routed from your local provider’s network to your chosen long distance provider’s network, where it is routed to the receiving party’s local phone provider’s network and finally, to their home phone line. Since multiple providers are involved, multiple providers charged a fee for the call, which the long distance provider passed on to you in the form of an often hefty per-minute charge.
But VOIP has changed all of that. It removes the long distance company from the equation, making a long distance phone call virtually the same as a local phone call. How? By using the internet as the routing method that passes the call from your local phone provider to your receiving party’s local phone provider. You initiate the call, and your analog voice signal is translated into a digital signal. That signal is then sent via your internet service to the internet, where it is routed to the receiving party’s local phone provider’s network, translated back into an analog signal and sent to the receiving party’s phone.
The disadvantages of VOIP should be part of what you understand regarding VOIP considerations, but they are relatively limited for the average consumer. The main complaints regarding VOIP have to do with providing the level of quality of service that customers are accustomed to with regular telephone technology.
The reason for this is multifold. VOIP requires a large amount of data to be compressed and transmitted, then uncompressed and delivered, all in a relatively small amount of time. Problems develop in VOIP conversations when this process takes too long and the callers experience one of two problems; echo or over-talk.
For businesses, VOIP considerations have more to do with how to manage the traffic over their network. Since they may be using their bandwidth for internet and even voice conferencing, they will need to analyze the amount of bandwidth that is necessary to handle all of their activities.
But for the average consumer, the greatest advantage of VOIP is the cost – or rather, the lack of cost. If you have a computer with a sound card, modem, speakers, a microphone and a (preferably) high speed connection, and you download software from companies such as skype.com, you can be making free long distance and international phone calls using VOIP in as little as 5 minutes.
By: Van Theodorou
