A Beginners Guide to VOIP

VOIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol. That sounds a bit intimidating, but let's break it down a bit and get into the history of phone calls. (We won't take long on this...) The traditional telephone used copper wire between the ends. Voice information is converted into electrical pulses by the microphone and converted back to audio by a speaker. It really works in much the same way that a microphone and speaker or record player and speaker setup would work. The only difference is that there can be a really long wired connection between the two parties. One of the disadvantages of this kind of a setup is that there are limits to the number of simultaneous calls that a phone system can handle. Only one call per wired connection is possible. (This is why having a second phone line in your home may require rewiring to accommodate it.)

VOIP instead converts voice information into packets of data much the same way email becomes packets of data so that it can be transmitted over the internet. One of the advantages to this is that software can compress the data so that many calls can travel over the same physical connection. (In other words you could add a second or third or fourth line to your VOIP account without needing a separate internet connection for each line.)

Since VOIP travels over the internet there are other advantages. Say for instance you want to make a call to Japan. It really could be expensive using the older phone technology. Imagine that you are occupying one of a limited number of "wires" that can carry on simultaneous conversations with that part of the world and you'll realize why. There is a a great expense because there isn't a surplus of traditional phone lines connecting us to Japan. With VOIP this can be much cheaper though (in fact online calls using something like Google Talk can be free when both parties are using a computer based service.) It becomes as easy and inexpensive as sending an email to a person in Japan. If you're calling a traditional land line telephone though you will still have a per minute charge, but most of the time the rates even for this are much cheaper than the alternative long distance rates for a traditional phone call.

What disadvantages are there to VOIP? Many VOIP services don't work at all, or may not work well with 911 and other emergency services. In looking for a VOIP provider this would be a good thing to research and consider keeping another phone for emergency use if need be. Hopefully this is something that may improve, but given the nature of VOIP your number can follow you anywhere around the globe that you have internet access, so you can imagine why it would be a challenge to connect a 911 call to the local emergency services.

Other disadvantages for VOIP are the requirements of electricity service and a broadband internet connection to make it work. A traditional phone line will typically work even through power outages and for that one reason alone I am not eager to give up a traditional land line phone. I think it can be an important emergency lifeline.

So, what are the best benefits of VOIP? Probably the two best benefits of VOIP are the ability to make cheap or free long distance calls and the ability for your voip phone number to follow you wherever you go and have an internet connection. So, if you have family that are overseas, or even in other areas of the United States it may be cheaper to give them a call using a VOIP service provider.

Does VOIP mean I have to make calls from my computer all the time? Not necessarily. Although there are many free programs to make phone calls using your computer and even devices that you can plug in to use as a phone handset or headset, it is not a requirement to make voip calls. There are devices that can convert even your traditional landline phone into a VOIP phone. Many VOIP service providers supply them preconfigured for their service, or you can buy them and configure them yourself for your VOIP phone provider. These are called ATA devices and will typically come with plugs for one or more landline phones and a plug to connect to your network router via a standard ethernet plug. There are also VOIP phones designed to plug directly into an ethernet connection, or to take advantage of a wireless network connection.

In the life of the telephone it really is a fairly recent thing for us to have conference calling, call waiting, voice mail and other features like this. I believe it was not until the 1980s that I remember starting to see these services offered with our home phone service. Some of the services such as voice mail really weren't offered to us locally until the 1990s.

So, what kind of add on features do VOIP services providers supply? The answer is really most all of them that you can think of and some that you might not think of. Most will provide voice mail, conference calling, call waiting and interactive voice response capabilities. Many VOIP services can forward incoming calls to multiple phones, screen calls based on the caller (even presenting different outgoing messages depending on the caller) and even provide you with the ability to do an a>.

Some VOIP providers even can notify you via text message or email when you have a voice message and even transcribe the contents of the voice message so that you can go ahead and see if it's something you need to deal with immediately.