Posts Tagged ‘Long Distance Phone’

« Older Entries

Raising the Bar – Continuing Advances In Voip Technology

January 28th, 2010

VOIP technology has advanced to a stage where VOIP is no longer an interesting start up, but a strong and valid technological force that offers so many benefits, not the least of which is huge savings in long distance phone calls. Many businesses have gone from expensive and complicated intra-office phone systems to switching to a VOIP system because of the increase in efficiency and strong decrease in cost. The continuing advancement of VOIP technology is what makes this possible.

Residential VOIP refers to the software that allows you to download the technology onto your computer and then communicate with family, friends, and acquaintances in the same way you would on the telephone, but your computer is used as a telephone instead. Because the technology is based on phone communication through the Internet, anyone you want to contact will also need to download the same technological software on their computers, but don’t worry, this is actually very easy!

What if you still want to call people who don’t have VOIP? One of the smartest technological advances by the companies encouraging the development of VOIP technology was creating an adaptor. An adaptor hooks up to a regular phone, and hooks it up to your VOIP so you can still use the residential VOIP to call any phone, whether it is a VOIP phone, a landline, or even a cell phone! This little piece of equipment allows you all the benefits of VOIP without any of the potential restrictions that could make people hesitant to invest in this service.

With the advancement of portable VOIP phones (Vonage is perhaps the best known company that provides this service), the question has been brought up of whether or not VOIP phones will be able to ever replace cell phones, and what would the difference be? While the technology is there for this to happen, the infrastructure isn’t there yet; though it is getting closer with each passing day.

The advantage of this would be that VOIP would be far cheaper, since long distance wouldn’t cost nearly anything and there would be no restriction on minutes. A wireless VOIP phone is also referred to as a “Wi-Fi VOIP phone,” and needs networks in the same way wireless internet needs networks, to work, but more are popping up every day, and many cities plan to increase the number of hot spots, which would make this a more and more viable option.

Many cell phone companies, sensing ahead of time what this could mean for them if they refuse to adapt, now design phones that not only work as regular cell phones, but also have features that allow the user to switch to their VOIP account if they are close enough to a hot spot. While complete VOIP is a long ways off, the beginning structures are there, and as the VOIP technology improves, it would not be surprising to head towards the day where VOIP isn’t a side game, but the main choice available to all phone users.

No comments »

Posted in Uncategorized

Tags:

Introduction to Voice Over IP (VOIP) Phone Service

December 29th, 2009

Anyone who is old enough to remember making long distance phone calls 30 years ago would also agree that telephone communication has changed considerably over the past three decades. Certainly the introduction and mass adoption of the cellphone has changed voice communication immeasurably. But there is a new revolution going on in landline communication as well. The latest technology is called Voice Over Internet Protocol, or VoIP for short. It is also known as Internet Telephony, a name that is derived from the fact that VoIP involves making phone calls over a broadband internet connection.

VoIP technology is taking the world by storm for mainly one reason – it is much cheaper than phonecalls made with the Plain Old Telephone System (POTS). It is very common for people who switch to using VoIP over POTS to save several hundred dollars per year off their phone bills. Furthermore, VoIP offers a wide variety of services like caller ID, 3 way calling, call forwarding, and so on at no extra charge. While most of these features are available in POTS plans, they are almost always available only for an extra monthly charge. So VoIP phone service offers improved phone service for less money – who doesn’t love that idea?

VoIP technology has come a long way since it was invented in the mid 1990’s. Originally, computer hobbyists were responsible for creating VoIP so that they could use voice communication between two people who both had computers and specialized voice equipment. The first VoIP companies began delivering products to the market in 1996, and by 1998 or 1999, VoIP technology had become a topic of considerable interest in technically oriented publications. The largest VoIP company (Vonage) started in 2001 and signed its first residential customer in 2002. Within the next two years, newer companies like Sunrocket entered the market to compete with Vonage by offering the same service at an even lower price. Today, an ever-growing number of residential and business customers are adopting VoIP technology as they discover the cost and performance advantages offered by the technology.

Another nice feature of VoIP is that switching from a POTS plan is very easy. You do need a broadband internet connection (cable, DSL, even wireless) but aside from that, the VoIP company you sign with will give you everything you need. The equipment can include either analog telephone adapter (ATA) which connects your existing phone to your broadband internet connection. However, it is more common these days for the VoIP carrier to provide you with a new VoIP phone, which looks just like your regular phone but is specially made to work with VoIP.

One of the latest exciting features of VoIP is portability. On leading VoIP carriers like Sunrocket and Vonage, you can take your VoIP modem with you when you go on business trips or on vacation, and simply connect this modem to any computer at your destination (any computer with a broadband internet connection). If you do this, your phone number travels with you! No one back home will ever know that you are overlooking the beach in Florida rather than sitting in your office in Cleveland. Imagine the possibilities!

The fact that VoIP is internet-based is the only major downside to VoIP. Unfortunately, internet connections occasionally go down, and during this time there is no VoIP service. Many people get around this problem by having a cellphone available as an emergency backup. So many people have cellphones these days that this is usually not an issue. So, you can use the VoIP system for making calls cheaply, and use the more expensive cellphone only for those emergency situations when the internet is down. In this way, you get the best of both worlds.




By: Marc Ilgen

No comments »

Posted in General

Tags:

VOIP Considerations

December 28th, 2009

Voice Over Internet Protocol (VOIP) is changing the way that we look at phone service. The relatively new technology is quickly becoming the norm in many homes across the world. But a variety of VOIP considerations should be explored before you take advantage of the technology.

It allows a caller to make long distance calls without having to pay much, or anything for them. Combine the VOIP technology with a broadband, or high speed, internet access line, and VOIP provides an easy, inexpensive way to make phone calls all over the world. However, there are still some disadvantages of VOIP – especially when it comes to using the technology for functions beyond the one caller to one caller scenario.

VOIP considerations for you to examine start with understanding how the technology works in comparison with traditional phone service. With traditional phone service, your long distance phone calls are routed from your local provider’s network to your chosen long distance provider’s network, where it is routed to the receiving party’s local phone provider’s network and finally, to their home phone line.

Since multiple providers are involved, multiple providers charged a fee for the call, which the long distance provider passed on to you in the form of an often hefty per-minute charge. But VOIP has changed all of that. It removes the long distance company from the equation, making a long distance phone call virtually the same as a local phone call. How? By using the internet as the routing method that passes the call from your local phone provider to your receiving party’s local phone provider.

You initiate the call, and your analog voice signal is translated into a digital signal. That signal is then sent via your internet service to the internet, where it is routed to the receiving party’s local phone provider’s network, translated back into an analog signal and sent to the receiving party’s phone.

The disadvantages of VOIP should be part of what you understand regarding VOIP considerations, but they are relatively limited for the average consumer.

The main complaints regarding VOIP have to do with providing the level of quality of service that customers are accustomed to with regular telephone technology. The reason for this is multifold. VOIP requires a large amount of data to be compressed and transmitted, then uncompressed and delivered, all in a relatively small amount of time.

Problems develop in VOIP conversations when this process takes too long and the callers experience one of two problems; echo or over-talk

For businesses, VOIP considerations have more to do with how to manage the traffic over their network. Since they may be using their bandwidth for internet and even voice conferencing, they will need to analyze the amount of bandwidth that is necessary to handle all of their activities.

But for the average consumer, the greatest advantage of VOIP is the cost – or rather, the lack of cost. If you have a computer with a sound card, modem, speakers, a microphone and a (preferably) high speed connection, and you download software from companies such as http://skype.com, you can be making free long distance and international phone calls using VOIP in as little as 5 minutes.




By: Van Theodorou

1 comment »

Posted in General

Tags: