Tuesday, March 4, 2008
What Is A VoIP Phone?
In spite of the growing popularity of IP telephony, there are still many people who do not know what a VoIP phone is. What is the difference between a VoIP phone and an ordinary phone?
As far as you are concerned, probably not a lot. You can still use your own landline phone if need be, though in its simplest form there is no VoIP phone handset as such. Just a microphone and speakers will do. All you need is some software which is supplied by the provider.
You can use your normal land-line phone. Just like digital TV requires a box, either set-top or included in the set, VoIP needs a box which you can either buy yourself, or get from your VoIP provider. Once you connect your phone to the box and the box to your internet connection, you have your VoIP phone system using your own phone. Due to the connection speeds involved you have to have broadband or another high-speed internet connection.
Your telephone conversation passes through the internet in packets in the same way as any other file does. As you speak, your analogue voice signal is digitized by the VoIP software into binary form, and the digital stream broken up into small 'packets' which are sent through the internet. These packets each take their own fastest route through the internet, from computer to computer, till they reach their destination. This is the way that all files are sent through IP.
The problem with a streamed signal, such as a VoIP phone conversation, and a packet system, is that the packets do not always arrive in the correct order. This is due to the releative amount of internet traffic each packet comes up against, and the fact that they can each take different routes. Also, some packets are lost, or 'dropped'.
Modern software is becoming increasingly better at arranging packets in the correct order (often through slight time delays which allow them to be rearranged) and covering up 'dropped' packets. VoIP phone conversations are therefore more audible now than they were in the early days of VoIP phone systems.
As I said, you can use your computer microphone and speakers to make and receive conversations, but you can also get a dedicated VoIP phone if you prefer. It's all a matter of choice and does not significantly affect the services you can have.
Some of the services supplied free with VoIP phone systems are:
* Caller ID
* Call waiting
* Call forwarding
* Voicemail
* Conference calls
* Call transfer
* Group pick-up
Once you have your box, any calls you make to another VoIP are free anywhere. For calls to non-VoIP phones there is a charge, but this is generally lower than normal land-line charges.
Your phone number relates to the adaptor, so you can take this with you and use it on any computer with fast internet connection. You can also buy a VoIP phone to go with your laptop and make telephone calls anywhere at any time; just as you can with a mobile, but at a fraction of the cost, and usually free to any other IP phone. This is an excellent inexpensive solution for businesses with a network of offices all calls between them will be free throughout the world.
Another cool feature is virtual phone numbers. You can get local area numbers allocated to your regular phone number, so that if your family live in LA and you are in New York they can ring your LA local number with their landline and speak to you in New York at local rates. How cool is that!
A VoIP phone is now an attractive option for anyone, both as a cheap alternative to a mobile phone and as a complete replacement for a landline.
Copyright 2006 Peter Nisbet
Peter Nisbet is an industrial chemist with a great interest in internet file transmission and reception systems and runs many websites including http://www.data-voip-solutions.com where many aspects of VoIP services and systems are discussed.
As far as you are concerned, probably not a lot. You can still use your own landline phone if need be, though in its simplest form there is no VoIP phone handset as such. Just a microphone and speakers will do. All you need is some software which is supplied by the provider.
You can use your normal land-line phone. Just like digital TV requires a box, either set-top or included in the set, VoIP needs a box which you can either buy yourself, or get from your VoIP provider. Once you connect your phone to the box and the box to your internet connection, you have your VoIP phone system using your own phone. Due to the connection speeds involved you have to have broadband or another high-speed internet connection.
Your telephone conversation passes through the internet in packets in the same way as any other file does. As you speak, your analogue voice signal is digitized by the VoIP software into binary form, and the digital stream broken up into small 'packets' which are sent through the internet. These packets each take their own fastest route through the internet, from computer to computer, till they reach their destination. This is the way that all files are sent through IP.
The problem with a streamed signal, such as a VoIP phone conversation, and a packet system, is that the packets do not always arrive in the correct order. This is due to the releative amount of internet traffic each packet comes up against, and the fact that they can each take different routes. Also, some packets are lost, or 'dropped'.
Modern software is becoming increasingly better at arranging packets in the correct order (often through slight time delays which allow them to be rearranged) and covering up 'dropped' packets. VoIP phone conversations are therefore more audible now than they were in the early days of VoIP phone systems.
As I said, you can use your computer microphone and speakers to make and receive conversations, but you can also get a dedicated VoIP phone if you prefer. It's all a matter of choice and does not significantly affect the services you can have.
Some of the services supplied free with VoIP phone systems are:
* Caller ID
* Call waiting
* Call forwarding
* Voicemail
* Conference calls
* Call transfer
* Group pick-up
Once you have your box, any calls you make to another VoIP are free anywhere. For calls to non-VoIP phones there is a charge, but this is generally lower than normal land-line charges.
Your phone number relates to the adaptor, so you can take this with you and use it on any computer with fast internet connection. You can also buy a VoIP phone to go with your laptop and make telephone calls anywhere at any time; just as you can with a mobile, but at a fraction of the cost, and usually free to any other IP phone. This is an excellent inexpensive solution for businesses with a network of offices all calls between them will be free throughout the world.
Another cool feature is virtual phone numbers. You can get local area numbers allocated to your regular phone number, so that if your family live in LA and you are in New York they can ring your LA local number with their landline and speak to you in New York at local rates. How cool is that!
A VoIP phone is now an attractive option for anyone, both as a cheap alternative to a mobile phone and as a complete replacement for a landline.
Copyright 2006 Peter Nisbet
Peter Nisbet is an industrial chemist with a great interest in internet file transmission and reception systems and runs many websites including http://www.data-voip-solutions.com where many aspects of VoIP services and systems are discussed.
Never Miss A File Again With Rollback Rx
Rollback Rx is the most effective solution to fix computer problems for any computer user. If you were a business owner, one of your biggest nightmares would be to lose critical data because a software download misfired, or because an update failed. The data loss, big or small, could result in major losses depending on how important it was. There is always the risk of major data loss if there is no suitable computer security software installed.
Easy Solution
Businesses operate for profit. They would rather spend their money on growing their business than investing in fancy technology. They want a solution that is easy to use, quick to restore computers to an operational state and flexible. They do not want to wait for long periods of time for technical support to figure out what is wrong to fix computer problems. In the event of a disaster recovery due to system crash, they simply cannot afford to lose customers because they were unable to react in time. Rollback Rx fits the bill on every count. It saves money on technical support, because every user in an organization can be trained to use this system restore software.
Thanks to Rollback Rx, speedy recovery from a virus attack or system crash is possible. This is regardless of whether the operating system booted or not. When Rollback Rx is installed in the system, it is as simple as clicking the mouse and returning to a healthy PC without losing data.
Tremendous Time Saver
Multi user systems are even more critical to maintain and keep running. Imagine a network of ten computers down because of a virus attack! The system downtime would have been several hours but with Rollback Rx, it is reduced to minutes because of the ease with which it operates, quietly and efficiently. Even a remote network administrator can restore computers located elsewhere to working status. Response time to fix computer user complaints is only three minutes or less with Rollback Rx, whereas without it, problems often take more than a working day to fix.
Rollback Rx Saves You Money
Businesses prefer Rollback Rx system restore software because it saves them tension from waiting for tech support, while saving them the costs related to fixing computer problems. They are able to concentrate their efforts at satisfying their customers rather than worry about data loss and how to recover it. Rollback Rxs snapshot technology enables them to save pictures of the entire system at various points of time so that they can rollback or roll forward to a specific configuration. Their employees are more productive with decrease in downtime of systems. They are able to save money on additional expensive software.
Jacob Henderson is the technical head of Horizon Data Systems and leading software development firm in the business of Desktop Security and PC performance enhancement software. During his more than 10 years of software development experience in various positions, Jacob Henderson has developed a large number of state of the art software and written numerous articles and reports. Jacob Henderson was one of the core team leaders, that is responsible for the development of user integration features of the flagship product of the Company-Rollback Rx Software.
Easy Solution
Businesses operate for profit. They would rather spend their money on growing their business than investing in fancy technology. They want a solution that is easy to use, quick to restore computers to an operational state and flexible. They do not want to wait for long periods of time for technical support to figure out what is wrong to fix computer problems. In the event of a disaster recovery due to system crash, they simply cannot afford to lose customers because they were unable to react in time. Rollback Rx fits the bill on every count. It saves money on technical support, because every user in an organization can be trained to use this system restore software.
Thanks to Rollback Rx, speedy recovery from a virus attack or system crash is possible. This is regardless of whether the operating system booted or not. When Rollback Rx is installed in the system, it is as simple as clicking the mouse and returning to a healthy PC without losing data.
Tremendous Time Saver
Multi user systems are even more critical to maintain and keep running. Imagine a network of ten computers down because of a virus attack! The system downtime would have been several hours but with Rollback Rx, it is reduced to minutes because of the ease with which it operates, quietly and efficiently. Even a remote network administrator can restore computers located elsewhere to working status. Response time to fix computer user complaints is only three minutes or less with Rollback Rx, whereas without it, problems often take more than a working day to fix.
Rollback Rx Saves You Money
Businesses prefer Rollback Rx system restore software because it saves them tension from waiting for tech support, while saving them the costs related to fixing computer problems. They are able to concentrate their efforts at satisfying their customers rather than worry about data loss and how to recover it. Rollback Rxs snapshot technology enables them to save pictures of the entire system at various points of time so that they can rollback or roll forward to a specific configuration. Their employees are more productive with decrease in downtime of systems. They are able to save money on additional expensive software.
Jacob Henderson is the technical head of Horizon Data Systems and leading software development firm in the business of Desktop Security and PC performance enhancement software. During his more than 10 years of software development experience in various positions, Jacob Henderson has developed a large number of state of the art software and written numerous articles and reports. Jacob Henderson was one of the core team leaders, that is responsible for the development of user integration features of the flagship product of the Company-Rollback Rx Software.
