Things To Know About VoIP | The Communication Blog

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Things To Know About VoIP

By Margaret Gonzalez


VoIP, short for Voice over IP is a term that refers to techniques and communication protocols used for Internet telephony. The term is generally associated with all services that are not used by public telephone systems. All information is sent over the Internet.

The public telephony network and the Voice over IP system are two different things. Even if the work basically the same, the way the signal is sent is different. First, the message is encoded and digitized and it's sent in packs to the other end of the line. The receiving end takes the necessary steps to retrieve the message and these are basically the same but in a reversed order.

People often confuse IP telephony with Voice over IP. Even if, as mentioned before, they work the same way, they are included in different categories. The difference between the two is the fact that one of them is a subset of the other.

In order to make phone calls, every system needs codecs. Even more, these codecs are associated with a certain application that makes the encoding and decoding of the voice signal. Every application or program uses certain signal recognition software that depends on network and Internet connection.

At first, Voice over IP was used only on computers because they had an Internet connection. In time, technology evolved and nowadays smartphone users are also able to make calls using their phones. That's because more and more phones are like small computers and come with an Internet connection. Networks like 3G and 4G offer users the possibility of sending messages and making video calls.

Every person with a computer and an Internet connection can make use of the Voice over IP system. The blooming of the industry began in 2004 when Internet providers offered users subscriptions at very low costs. The charges were very small and people were able to talk to one another even from different countries. Usually, making calls in the same country was free of charge. In order to attract more people, Internet providers included also international calls free of charge for certain countries.

There are many differences between standard phone systems and VoIP. For example, the best part of using Voice over IP systems is that a phone number is quickly associated with a country. This goes both ways: when making a call or when receiving a call from someone in a different country. This is only one small advantage. The biggest advantage is the cost. Compared to standard phone systems, Voice over IP is much cheaper. Plus, if 2 users in different countries install the same application they will be able to talk unlimited without cost.




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