What Is Voip

What is voip and why is there so much hype about voip? VoIP is essentially talking over the connection provided by your ISP-Internet Service Provider. Some service providers offer specialized VoIP services with online billing systems. Even if your provider does not provide this; you could talk from your computer to another person sitting on a computer in a different place using different softwares. Messenger services offer you this ability but other software application promise better quality of voice transmission.

VoIP is showing much promise in the long distance communication market where the prices for other means of communication are presently high. VoIP has been here since the early 90’s and has started off in a major way when broadband services were offered. In the early days if you needed to talk to someone on the net they would require to be online. If they were not online, you could not talk to them.

To get a person online you would have to call them on the traditional telephone number and ask them to get onto the internet. There is now evolving a mechanism for internet telephone numbers and methods of integrating the old system and concepts into IP telephony. Thus, you can use an IP telephone and connect with any traditional phone user as well.

A voip subscriber on a broadband ISP connection does not require an additional telephone line. You are assigned a phone number by your VoIP provider.
You are offered a bundle of services like unlimited incoming and outgoing calls with other facilities for a flat rate.
Free features like voice mail, caller ID, call forwarding; call waiting and other features of traditional telephone systems are offered.

Voice Over The Internet Protocol

The basics of voip are conversion of the analog voice signal into digital format, the compression and encryption of the signal into Internet Protocols IP packets. The process is reversed at the destination end. The following has to be done in real time.

At the source

Voice which is analog signals is converted into corresponding electrical variations using a microphone
These continuous waveform electrical signals are amplified and converted to digital format
The Digital signals are compressed to save bandwidth and increase speed.
The resulting compressed signal is encrypted for security purpose
The encrypted signal is broken into smaller blocks and a destination header is attached to each block
These packets as they are now known are transferred via the internet.

At the destination

A number of packets are received at the destination. These may have come on different routes.
The header of each packet is checked for the order at which they were sent so it can be recompiled in proper order.
The Packets are now retrieved and the encrypted data is decrypted.
The signals are now decompressed
The digital signals are now converted back to analog signals and given to a speaker.

Continue to : Processing Basics of VOIP

Internet Telephony - Convergence of Technologies
The Future of Telephony-VoIP
Wireless VOIP – Is It Really Secure?
What Do I Need For VoIP?