Most likely, voip will replace telephone service in the near future. VOIP is becoming very reliable and thus, receiving acceptance. Phone companies are already taking advantage of the technology to provide inexpensive long distance rates.
Voip generally has low costs, which is one big indicator of its growing popularity. You can sign up with a voip service provider for a monthly fee and get unlimited calls within a specified geographic area. There are some voip services in the United States that allow connections for no extra charge.
There is another benefit of having voip as opposed to a regular form, and this comes in the form of portability. You can make and receive phone calls wherever there is a broadband connection by simply signing in to your voip account.
When you are traveling, you simply pack a headset or Internet phone. Internet phones are small and light enough to take anywhere. When you sign up with a voip service provider, the Internet phone or adaptor used by that service is assigned a unique number. This ‘phone number’ remains valid, even if your voip service is in San Diego and you are connected to the Internet in Spain. When plugged into a broadband connection, anywhere in the world, you can make and receive calls as though you were at home.
Call forwarding, call waiting, voicemail, caller ID and 3way-calling, are included with Internet telephone at no extra charge. While you are talking on the phone, you can send pictures and documents at the same time.
Although there are many attributes to a voip phone, there are also some things to consider that could fall on the negative spectrum. For one, services are not useful in emergencies. Traditional phone equipment can trace the locations of calls. Emergency calls are diverted to the nearest call center where the operator can identify your location, in the event you can’t talk. With voip, there is no way currently to determine where Internet calls are originating.
Standard phone service continues by the current supplied through the phone line during a blackout. This isn’t possible with Internet phones. When the power goes, there goes voip service. Battery backups and power generators that provide electricity are solutions to the problem.
In addition, you should keep in mind that voip has sound quality and reliability problems. Data sent across the Internet usually arrives at its destination scrambled. E-mail and documents can be reassembled in the correct order when it arrives. Voice data also arrives scrambled, but it’s more complicated because of the real-time nature of VOIP. Some data packets may have to be dropped when they don’t arrive in time, in order to make voice connections with the least delay. Distance and speed of the connection determine the amount of data lost. Some networks receive more traffic and thus are more likely to cause audio dropouts.
By: Groshan Fabiola
Posts Tagged ‘Long Distance Rates’
VOIP Technology – the Next Step in Phone Industry
November 11th, 2009What You Should Know About VOIP Technology
November 10th, 2009
You have heard it all-everyone is talking about the VOIP technology and how it is outpacing the telephones companies and even the cellular companies. So what is all the talk about?
VOIP allows you to make your entire local, long distance and international telephone calls over your high-speed internet connection. All of this for just one low price that can be rolled up into your monthly internet cable invoice. The technology is changing rapidly and there are a lot of new features available to people savvy enough to get in on the ground floor for this new technology.
So, what should you do? How different will your VOIP technology be over your regular telephone company? If you listen to the advertisements, you will realize that they are a lot alike, but there are also some benefits that VOIP technology now offers.
For your VOIP telephone phone, you can have voice mail, 3-way calling, speed dialing, call forwarding, simultaneous ring, call waiting, caller ID, call return, caller ID block, anonymous call rejection, do not disturb feature, and last number redial. If changing to the VOIP system you can take your existing telephone number, get great international rates, make it possible for people overseas to call you with it being a local call for them (gone are the long distance rates), you get free in-calling network and can manage your account online.
Well, this sounds a lot like the other phone companies, so what really makes the VOIP technology better? It is debatable as to whether or not this is better. It is definitely different, however; recently, there was a press release on News.com that “A technical review conducted by the British government has found several security flaws in products that use VOIP and text messaging, including those from Microsoft and Cisco Systems.” So, there can be a problem with the VOIP technology.
There is also concern that the VOIP does not full support their own encryptions yet. This means that it is easy to eavesdrop on VOIP telephones and to even change what is being said. Experts are working on security options, but have not yet found one that is completely reliable to take care of this problem.
If you look at it only one way, you would say, this is a major problem and I can not deal with that. However, consider the cyper terrorists. They can and will disrupt any communications system-all it takes is the time and patience to find a single flaw and everything can come crashing down.
The choice is yours to decided whether or not the VOIP technology is advanced enough for you to use this as your primary means of communicating on the telephone. Take your time and really think about whether or not this new VOIP technology will do everything you need it to do. If not, you might want to wait a few years until the technology has advanced more before changing over to the new VOIP technology. You know that technology will only change and be improved for the better.
By: J. Lloyd
