Voice Over IP (VOIP)

Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a general term for a family of transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications over IP networks such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks. Other terms frequently encountered and synonymous with VoIP are IP telephony, Internet telephony, voice over broadband (VoBB), broadband telephony, and broadband phone. Internet telephony refers to communications services—voice, facsimile, and/or voice-messaging applications—that are transported via the Internet, rather than the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The basic steps involved in originating an Internet telephone call are conversion of the analog voice signal to digital format and compression/translation of the signal into Internet protocol (IP) packets for transmission over the Internet; the process is reversed at the receiving end. VoIP systems employ session control protocols to control the set-up and tear-down of calls as well as audio codecs which encode speech allowing transmission over an IP network as digital audio via an audio stream. Codec use is varied between different implementations of VoIP (and often a range of codecs are used); some implementations rely on narrowband and compressed speech, while others support high fidelity stereo codecs.

Corporate use Because of the bandwidth efficiency and low costs that VoIP technology can provide, businesses are gradually beginning to migrate from traditional copper-wire telephone systems to VoIP systems to reduce their monthly phone costs. VoIP solutions aimed at businesses have evolved into “unified communications” services that treat all communications—phone calls, faxes, voice mail, e-mail, Web conferences and more—as discrete units that can all be delivered via any means and to any handset, including cellphones. Two kinds of competitors are competing in this space: one set is focused on VoIP for medium to large enterprises, while another is targeting the small-to-medium business (SMB) market. VoIP also offers the advantage of running both voice and data communications over a single network which can represent a significant saving in infrastructure costs. Other advantages that appeal to business is that the per extension prices of VoIP are lower than those of PBXs or key systems. Also, VoIP switches rely on commodity hardware, such as PCs or Linux systems, so they are easy to configure and troubleshoot. Rather than closed architectures, these devices rely on standard interfaces.

VoIP devices also have simple, intuitive user interfaces, so employees can often make simple system configuration changes. Features such as dual-mode cellphones enable users to continue their conversations as they move from an outside cellular service to an internal Wi-Fi network. The bundling means employees no longer have to carry a desktop phone and a cellphone, so companies can reduce their telecommunications equipment costs. Maintenance also becomes simpler, because there are fewer devices to oversee.

Most recently Skype, which originally marketed itself as a service among friends, has begun to cater to businesses. If a company’s clients, contacts and employees join the Skype network, they can be called for free, wherever they are in the world. Skype makes this simple; find the name of your contact, click and call, and all calls cost the employer nothing.

Operational cost VoIP can be a benefit for reducing communication and infrastructure costs. Examples include:

• Routing phone calls over existing data networks to avoid the need for separate voice and data networks.
• Conference calling, IVR, call forwarding, automatic redial, and caller ID features that traditional telecommunication companies (telcos) normally charge extra for are available for free from open source VoIP implementations such as Asterisk.

Costs are cheaper mainly because of the way internet access is billed compared to regular telephone calls. While regular telephone calls are billed by the minute or second, VoIP calls are billed per megabyte (MB). In other words VoIP calls are billed per amount of information (data) sent over the internet and not according to the time connected. This makes it cheaper because the amount charged for the data transferred in a given period is far less than that charged for the amount of time connected on a regular telephone line.

Flexibility

VoIP can facilitate tasks and provide services that may be more difficult to implement using the PSTN. Examples include:

• The ability to transmit more than one telephone call over the same broadband connection. This can make VoIP a simple way to add an extra telephone line to a home or office.
• Secure calls using standardized protocols (such as Secure Real-time Transport Protocol.) Most of the difficulties of creating a secure phone connection over traditional phone lines, like digitizing and digital transmission, are already in place with VoIP. It is only necessary to encrypt and authenticate the existing data stream.
• Location independence. Only an Internet connection is needed to get a connection to a VoIP provider. For instance, call center agents using VoIP phones can work from anywhere with a sufficiently fast and stable Internet connection.

Integration with other services available over the Internet, including video conversation, message or data file exchange in parallel with the conversation, audio conferencing, managing address books, and passing information about whether others (e.g., friends or colleagues) are available to interested parties.