Technology is growing and changing everyday. Consider phone service; at one time when people made telephone calls they did so with their phone attached to a jack in the wall and literally “dialed” the number they were calling. Then came the push-button phones; it was great to quickly “dial” the number by pressing the key pad. Soon the cordless phone jumped on the technological scene. This was wonderful; now people could walk around their house and talk without being limited to the phone cord attached to the wall, or worse tripping over the one hundred foot phone cord that they used to walk all around the house and talk on the phone.
Just as people were getting used to the cordless phone, soon came the invention of the mobile phone. It was cumbersome at first but what a thought – being able to use a phone in your vehicle. Now the cell phone is sleek, compact, and can do much more than simply make a call. Enter Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) – Internet phone service, how does VoIP work with your current phone?
With this technology, instead of the signals going out over a public network the voice signals travel over your high-speed broadband connection. You do not need to buy a new phone for this service, and you can enjoy substantial savings as you combine both the Internet and phone service into one low monthly rate. The amazing concept of VoIP is that it combines one technology to operate two different types of service; your phone and Internet. Making a call with VoIP technology can occur one of three ways:
* Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) – With the use of this device, you simply plug in your current phone into the adapter and then connect the adapter to your broadband service (possibly a modem). That is it you can now make calls. The way this system works is by taking the analog signal and changing it into a digital signal sent out over the Internet.
* IP Phones – these types of phones look exactly like analog phones the difference being they have an Ethernet connector instead of the standard phone connector and come equipped with the software and hardware needed for VoIP service built into them. You connect directly to your modem and begin enjoying exceptional quality with your next phone call.
* Computer-to-Computer – All you need for this service is high-speed Internet connections, sound card, microphone, and speakers. Typically, you pay a monthly rate from your Internet service provider.
By: Mike Singh
Posts Tagged ‘Voice Over Internet Protocol Voip’
How Does VoIP Work With Your Current Phone?
March 21st, 2010VOIP & Small Business – What Happened?
March 18th, 2010
The use of Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) has grown rapidly, but not rapidly as expected in the small business world. Anyone who knows anything about business or information technology had an idea that there would be issues with medium to large businesses that already had an established telecommunications and information technology infrastructure.
Where most of us have been disappointed is in the small business arena. This market is where most providers and retailers thought they would get the best penetration, I know I did.
So why have small business not embraced this cost effective solution? The answer to this is somewhat simple, but just as simple to solve.
1.) Lack of education and knowledge of how VOIP works and what it is.
Myths prevail about VOIP, some of these myths have merit, but others do not. The ones with merit can be overcome with education. This is the job of the Telecomm and IT Provider and Consultant. Sit down with the customer and ask them their fears. Look for answers to elevate those fears, but do not make up answers. There are times when these fears should and will apply to a client. In which case the proper risk assessment needs to take place and be presented to the client.
2.) Retailers and providers of VOIP services selling a “one size fits all” service.
Most residential customers can be satisfied with this type of catch all, but home based business and small businesses that have larger data requirements and high call volume and transmissions may not be happy with the quality.
Most VOIP retailers do not take the time to conduct and audit of current services or expenses of the customer. They throw the hype at the customer and hope they bite. High Trust Sales is a must in any business. A quality Telecomm and Information technology solutions provider and consultant will make sure he does a complete analysis of every customer whether residential or small business.
Every customer can be unique and has unique requirements. All residential and small business customers do not necessarily have the same requirements like standard phone service to worry about. Some residential customers are home-based business owners, like I am, that require special needs such as larger bandwidth of the data carrier to compensate for the added voice requirements.
It is up to the Solutions Provider and Consultant to review these needs. In fact sometimes the customer does not realize these extra requirements. That is the job of the Telecomm and IT Solutions Provider and Consultant.
By: Joseph Brochin
Challenges of VOIP in 2007
March 16th, 2010
Today average customer uses Voice over internet protocol (VoIP) which is latest trend in communication industry. The technology is rapidly advancing because all telecommunication product companies are now investing fund to have more improved VoIP products and services.
This year the VOIP market has picked up. Many corporate have started using VoIP and have realized a large savings of 52-percent or more off their phone bills. Use of wireless VoIP helped hospitals to reduce cost of mobile phones. Technologically VoIP is better than pagers and hence it is getting popular in nursing homes and hospitals.
What are the disadvantages of Voice over Internet Protocol?
VoIP is becoming very popular to business houses but it is still not very popular to residential segment. The qualities of VoIP services are inferior to the quality of call in regular telephone technology due to various reasons.
VOIP technology requires a large amount of data to be compressed and transmitted in a packet format, then uncompressed and delivered, all in a relatively small amount of time. This digitization of analog voice signals takes too long and the callers experience either echo or over-talk.
Regular phone calls function with a delay of no more than ten( 10) milliseconds whereas in the case VOIP the delay is up to 400 milliseconds, meaning that the callers won’t hear each other fast enough to make the conversation flow easily. Due to this delay, either callers will hear themselves talking or they will start talking again before they have heard the other person reply. It is true that this delay problem does not occur for each call.
The disadvantages of VOIP are usually acceptable if the callers are using a free service and the calls are for personal in nature. The degradation of voice quality is not acceptable to corporate houses. Apart from delay in voice conversation, IT security network like firewall sometimes failed to route a VOIP call once it is received.
Moreover, if several people use VoIP, bandwidth utilization also increases. Excess use of bandwidth also increases the infrastructural cost.
By: Arindam Chattopadhyaya
