What Is Voip?
In the field of telecommunications sales, the most frequently asked question I have heard is
, "What exactly is VoIP?". VoIP is a very simple yet very ingenious technology. VoIP is an acronym for "Voice over Internet Protocol", which simply means that it is a technology that uses the Internet to carry voice signals instead of the plain old telephone lines. The technology behind this can get a little confusing, so I will try to keep it as simple as possible.
When the phone came about, our voices were carried very much like the old kid game with the two can and a long piece of string. Voice signals were carried over the copper lines in megahertz, or MHz. These megahertz were carried at different frequencies between 450MHz to 8000MHz. The lower or higher the frequency, the lower the quality of the sound. So as we became more proficient at telephone systems, we specialized our systems to send and receive around 2000MHz for optimal call clarity.
With the advent of the Internet we found that we could run binary code over telephone lines at 1000-1200 MHz (1040MHz for a "0" and 1240 MHz for a "1") without interrupting or interfering with voice signals. Now we have two different forms of information being carried over the same lines, but just at different megahertz. As our need for information and our knowledge about technology increased, so did our demand for higher speeds and quicker download times. We increased bandwidth to accommodate for larger files of information as well as pretty pictures and colors. Soon we had maxed out our speeds for the amount of information that we could carry over these telephone lines, but we wouldn't be stopped there. Our next advance would allow us to group information together in segments and send it that way. Our computers would literally take mass amounts of information, group it together in a coded message, send over the Internet to its destination where the information was received with a security key to decode it. The receiving computer would then decode the information, separate it accordingly and place it out on the page similar to a jigsaw puzzle. Since this advancement very little has occurred in the way of advancements for sending and receiving information, but we have increased speed by increasing bandwidth, allowing more information to travel over the Internet at one period of time.
This has now brought us up to date with current technology, but now we have found another wrench to throw into machine. Our latest technological advance has been to take the original voice signal, break it down into data (very similar to the same code that is our pretty pictures and colors) send it over the internet to a receiving computer that decodes the data back into voice for you to hear it! This is the technology know as VoIP.
Now a lot of people say, "this seems like a lot of work, what is the purpose for dong all of this work, especially if you are basically running it over phone lines like we initially had done for years?". Well with a telephone and a telephone company, anytime you are dialing to reach somebody that is long distances away, your call must pass through what is called a "switch". Every time that the call passes through a switch, there is someone there to re-route your call to make sure that it reaches its destination. This costs money to pay these people to "switch" your call, as well as it costs money to maintain the building in which these switches are housed. With VoIP, you are not really calling a telephone number as much as you are calling a IP address. Just like sending an email, it is no more difficult to email across the world than it is to email your next door neighbor. This makes long distance calling virtually free. Pretty much all a consumer pays for is the operating costs of the company that is providing the VoIP lines (which is much less expensive operating costs than that of the traditional telephone company). This is a relatively new technology that has taken off in recent years. During its inception there were issues with call clarity as well as its reliability to be considered a true alternative to plain old telephone lines. We now are aware of the obstacles to achieving optimal call clarity, such as running on slower internet connections. Due to the fact that voice is transferred into data, the signals are interpreted as data, and not given the same priority as voice once was on the same lines. In other words, if your connection is too slow or you are running off of a different provider for your internet than the company who services your phone, then there can be periods of "cutting out" or "drops".
The real problem today is that VoIP is seen as the future of voice services, and I personally believe (along with most of my colleagues) that VoIP will replace traditional telephone services for the standard technology in voice services. This is causing many companies that have been in the telecommunications business to have to adapt and throw their hat into the "VoIP Ring". This is a technology that requires an advanced knowledge in information technology, and an above average understanding in computer programming. These telephone companies are not trained enough and experienced enough in this new technology to set it up and troubleshoot properly. It is similar to saying that you know how to make a paper plane, so you know how to fly a space shuttle.
Well, I hope that this has answered some questions regarding VoIP services, what it is, and how it works. I will be writing an article soon on the advantages of VoIP and also how VoIP and PBX phone systems go together.
by: Netacom
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