Question about VoIP?

Question

Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP, IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband

Can someone give me a quick explanation about what it is?

When it started?

How much money it saves (on average a year)?

Which are the biggest Voip companies/providers in the world and UK?

Im going for an interview tomorrow with a company and i need some facts incase they ask me!

Cheers

In english please!

Im going for an engineers position, that get phones ready for dispatch and configering them.

Answer 1

I would want to know my topic before I went into an interview with limited information.

VoIP is probably more misunderstood than understood by the general public.

No carrier who uses the public Internet for transport can promise and assure voice quality. The Internet does NOT recognize or provode priority to voice packets over data packets and the Internet is not designed to do this. This means that the voice quality is uncertain. Many, including many carriers who use the Internet for Voice transport, state that upgrading your Internet speed resolves voice quality problems. This is true ONLY if the voice quality resulted from insufficient bandwidth. Most of the time this is not the only potential cause of the problem.

Your data network may work fine for data. Adding voice to it creates a new set of demands. Your network hardware (switches and routers in particular) must be able to recognize and process voice packets as a priority over data. This usually is a substantial and costly upgrade to your network requiring some network engineering to assure congestion is minimized and properly addressed to provide voice quality.

Many claim the free long distance is the cost justification for VoIP. They seem to forget the cost for the VoIP carrier, the cost for the network upgrade, the cost for IP phones to replace conventional phones, greater Internet access speed, etc. Be careful to examine all costs and make sure there is a sound business case for the VoIP conversion. After all businesses are in business to make money. They do this when there are real savings. Make sure they are really there and don't be blindly taken in by claims of free long distance or other savings that may be substantially less than the cost.

The so called cost savings, once you subtract the upgrade costs may not exist.

Also remember that NO CARRIER using the Internet for transport can assure voice quality over the Internet.

I am not opposed to VoIP - it has its place. It falls nicely in place in a new facility or in a facility that has been renovated and no existing network is in place. Installing one network for voice and data within the organization can be cost effective (where the major saving is in install labor not in hardware). However, remember that this all on the private network. Linking to other locations with point to point T1 or E1 or similar links will preserve packet priority for voice BUT will the cost savings be realized AFTER you have paid for the point - to - point? Maybe - but then again maybe not.

Another matter that the Financial Department and upper management departments need to clarify is the organization's capital availability and use practices. Some wish to preserve capital for its propriatery machinery and processes and prefer to avoid capital use for "more general" use. The network upgrade is a capital issue. If capital is tight, proposing a capital investment on what may be perceived as a substitute for commonly available telephone equipment may be stopped solely based on the Finance Department and / or upper management's general views. This may be refered to as the "political factor" but it is a real matter anyway.

I suggest you state that you need to conduct a complete cost / benefit study for VoIP implementation at the company before you can state it is a prudent business decision. Managers like people who are careful and thorough. If they act surprised at your answer, tell them that VoIP may be a substantial money saver but then again it may not when all details are folded into the equation.

Answer 2

VoIP is basically phone calls are using internet connection. You need a special phone adapter to connect your regular phone to the internet connection. Also, the internet connection should be broadband which means using DSL or Cable. It will not work with dial-up internet connection since your internet connection needs to be on at all times.

The well known companies which offers VoIP are Vonage and Skype. These are the ones i'm awared of. Currently, i'm using Vonage. Vonage basic phone package costs about $15 a month. However, with this basic package, they gave you 500 free minutes just like your mobile phone plans.

If you need more details on VoIP, you can go to the following website to find out.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VoIP

Hopes this help.

Answer 3

voip, is voice over Internet protocol, it uses the ip to transmit voice rather than data, you need to two decoding devices at each each end to decode the data into voice this is normal done by soft ware or the soft ware be able to decode the date to send voice.

Answer 4

Of course you can recieve any kind of calls from any phone. Try your local cable company, or rogers, they have great service.