VoIP, an acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol, is commonly defined as the communications technology that allows businesses to make phone calls over the Internet. VoIP has gained in popularity over the last three years as a way for businesses to lower their communications costs and increase worker productivity and operational efficiency via a remote workforce, as well as improve many business processes through voice integration.
VoIP is made up of two basic parts; voice and the Internet Protocol. Voice refers to your natural analog voice stream, which is captured by an input device such as a telephone. Internet Protocol (IP) is a protocol for communicating digital packets across a packet switched internetwork. Today, this is primarily used by the Internet for sending and receiving data. Input devices and their corresponding business communications systems work in conjunction to turn analog voice into digital packets for transport over an IP network.
This way of communicating voice data is in stark contrast to the way traditional phone calls are made using the PSTN (Publicly Switched Telephone Network). PSTN calling uses a TDMA type communications protocol that utilizes a circuit mode switching infrastructure to transmit data. These differences are what create the various benefits of VoIP technology.
VoIP is not only about making calls over the Internet. VoIP calls can be made over any IP network, such as a home or office LAN (Local Area Network), although most businesses utilize VoIP through a WAN (Wide Area Network) connection. The WAN is what most people commonly refer to as the Internet. In addition to a hardwire network, VoIP calls can also be made via a wireless network or even via a cellular phone’s data network. The future of VoIP calling lies in its capability of sending and receiving calls via any IP network regardless of how that network is accessed.
Because VoIP calls are made over the Internet, VoIP call quality depends heavily on the quality, bandwidth availability, and reliability of a business’s Internet connection. Since VoIP uses the IP protocol to send analog voice packets via an internetwork, there needs to be enough available bandwidth so these packets can be sent and received with ease. This will lower the likelihood of any packet loss that results in choppy calls, jitter or any sort of latency that might result in time delays during a conversation.
Experts no longer consider VoIP to be the future of telecommunications, but a must-have technology that millions of businesses are already utilizing. Although VoIP does have potential downsides, the benefits of VoIP calling far out-weigh them. As the technology continues to mature and the amount of available bandwidth continues to increase, VoIP will fully replace traditional communications systems as the defacto communications medium.
