VoIP on the Road

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May 012007
 

Here’s an article on some of the mobile advantages of VoIP.

Some Neat Things You Can Do With VOIP
By Jon Arnold

Do you know what VOIP is? Unless you have been living in a cave for the past few years, you have undoubtedly seen VOIP advertised at electronics stores, on TV, inside your cable bill, and from some of your friends. In a nutshell, VOIP allows you to make and receive phone calls over the Internet. That’s right, you do not need to hassle with SBC or BellSouth or Verizon anymore if you don’t want to. The person you are calling does not need to have a VOIP phone, you can call them or they can call you anyway.

The one thing that IS required for any VOIP servce, regardless of the provider you get it from, is a decent and reliable high-speed Internet connection. The vast majority of the time when customers complain about the quality of a VOIP phone conversation, the bottom line result is that the fault is rarely with the VOIP service, but it is the fault of the high-speed Internet connection. The VOIP provider has no control over the quality (or lack thereof) of your high-speed Internet connection, so if your connection is not reliable or is “spotty”, you need to either get a different Internet provider, or perhaps VOIP is not for you at this time.

The latter situation would be bad news if you look at the economics of it. From your local phone company, you are probably paying $25 to $30 per month just for dial tone, and then you have long distance charges on top of that. For less money, you can also get dial tone, plus voice mail, plus caller ID, plus a host of other features (depending on the carrier), plus unlimited long distance calling in the continental US (or beyond with some providers). It really is a no brainer.

Let’s look at a couple of neat things that VOIP allows you do to, things that you cannot do with your traditional phone. Let’s say you live in Chicago, and you travel on business or pleasure to Atlanta and you bring your VOIP phone with you. When you get to Atlanta, you plug your VOIP phone into the high-speed Internet connection at your hotel. You can STILL make calls as if you were still in Chicago, and when somebody calls your Chicago phone number, it will ring on your VOIP phone in your Atlanta hotel room! It’s like nothing has changed and you are still at home in Chicago!

I have a friend who does this all the time, and he travels worldwide. When he arrives at his hotel in Los Angeles or even London or Hong Kong, he plugs his VOIP phone into the high-speed Internet connection at his hotel, and he is making and receiving calls just as if he were at home in Denver!

Now let’s say that you have friends or family in Europe that you like to talk to, but you don’t talk to them very often because international calls are so expensive. The solution is for you to get a VOIP phone and get a VOIP phone for them and send it to them. (Assuming of course they have a high-speed Internet connection at their home, as do you). Now, even though they are located in Paris or Munich, their VOIP phone has a Houston (or whatever) phone number, and you can call them or they can call you and you can talk for as long as you want to at no additional charge!

VOIP technology brings a whole new era to the world of communications, and if you are not part of the VOIP revolution yet, you certainly should be, because it is not going away anytime soon!

Jon is a computer engineer who maintain a variety of web sites based on his knowledge and experience. For more information about VOIP, VOIP providers and home VOIP services, please visit his web site at Home VOIP Inside Information.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jon_Arnold
http://EzineArticles.com/?Some-Neat-Things-You-Can-Do-With-VOIP&id=542450

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 Posted by Jon Paul, VoIP Facts: The Blog at 9:11 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Cable vs. DSL for VoIP

 Articles  1 Response »
Apr 112007
 

Tips On DSL Connectivity For Residential VOIP
By Michael Lemm

You’ve finally decided to leave the stone age and get VoIP service (broadband phone) for your home or small business. The next decision is what to use for your network connection…..DSL or cable. Careful…..there is a difference. Here’s some tips on making the most out of choosing DSL.

No matter what you may have heard (or believe) the internet backbone you have is the single most important aspect affecting the quality (or lack thereof) for your VoIP calling experience. No matter what VoIP service you choose…… a poor performing internet connection will have a negative impact on your whole VoIP experience. Likewise inappropriate set-up or assimilation of your VoIP hardware with your internet connection is the other major contributor to call issues.

That said….here’s a few tips to keep in mind to help give you a better experience with DSL.

Continue reading »

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 Posted by Jon Paul, VoIP Facts: The Blog at 11:27 am  Tagged with: , , ,

VoIP over Cable vs. the Telcos

 Articles  4 Responses »
Apr 102007
 

VoIP – The Basics
By Madison Lockwood

This story is one of those too-good-to-be-true tales that actually might be real. The acronym VoIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol; that’s the technology for making telephone calls over the web. Several companies have introduced services that utilize this technological capacity and they are making a commercial success of it. That’s why major cable operators are now “bundling” cable service, high speed Internet access and telephone service in a package. They can provide all three products over the single coaxial cable wire that comes through your wall at home.

Telephone service over cable blows right past the “level playing field” that antitrust decisions have sought to achieve in order to provide competition for phone service on a local level. The telephone companies’ switching systems and all those copper cables on all those poles have been totally subverted by another Internet service. In the words of Peter Sisson, a former Bell Labs researcher, “Telephone service used to be based on a huge infrastructure of high-priced equipment…and now it’s just software.”

Continue reading »

 Posted by Jon Paul, VoIP Facts: The Blog at 10:20 am  Tagged with: , , , , ,

VoIP Explained From another Point of View

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Apr 092007
 

Here’s an article I ran accross from Raja Shekar of India looking at VoIP from a techincal perspective:

Voice Over Internet Protocl
By Raja Shekar

Introduction The term VoIP refers to the transfer of Voice over the Internet Protocol (IP) of the TCP/IP protocol suite. Using “VoIP” technology we can make traditional telephone calls from either computer or phone to other computer or phone using both public switched telephone network (PSTN) and internet (which is packet switched network). All you need is an Internet connection for VoIP. This technology really changes everything because it allows people to receive phone calls from anywhere that an internet connection exists, just in the same way you can receive your emails anywhere that you can connect to the internet.

The term “VoIP technology” covers a range of technologies, including voice-over-IP (VoIP) and fax-over-IP services, which are carried over both the Internet and private IP-based networks. VoIP is part of packet voice, which includes voice-over-asynchronous-transmission-mode (ATM) and frame-relay networks, which run faster than IP but are less common. VoIP connects across combinations of PCs, Web-based telephones, and phones connected via public telephone lines to remote voice gateways. Because information travels in discrete packets, it doesn’t need to rely on a continuously available switched circuit.

Using VoIP we can enhance the traditional PBX by combining voice and data services onto a single network. The end user devices (also called client device) are normally referred to as VoIP phone are used in VoIP. Development of the ‘VoIPphone’ will require the development of a ‘ system on a chip’ which combines digital signal processing (DSP) functions, micro-controller (MCU) functions, analog interface, telephone user interface and associated glue logic.

Continue reading »

 Posted by Jon Paul, VoIP Facts: The Blog at 10:26 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Googles VoIP Aspirations

 Articles  1 Response »
Feb 122007
 

Google has built its own peer to peer network, called Google Talk, based on the open source XMPP/Jabber protocol. Still in the beta phase, Google Talk at this time resembles a barebones IM chat, voice, and file sharing client, but is reportedly working on adding new services and functionality in the general release. Currently, calls can be made in network or between other Jabber servers only, and since the beta version does not support the Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), voice calls are not encrypted end to end.

While voice calls can be made simply through your computers speakers and a microphone, Google recommends using a headset for call clarity. There are also handsets available that support the client for Google Talk.

Just what plans Google has for this new application is the subject of much discussion. Early in 2005 it was reported that Google was buying up mass quantities of “dark fiber”, in essence giving them the ability to build their own fiber optic network, but to date nothing has been done with it. They have also been cuddling up to voice over IP service provider VoIP Inc., a company that could help them go off network to the PSTN, and deliver services such as E911 and virtual phone numbers. Is anyone seeing a pattern here?

Being the search engine that it is, Google says it is also working on the technology to make audio files searchable. If successful, this could open up a Pandora’s Box of legal and regulatory issues.

As a peer to peer VoIP, chat, and file sharing network, Google Talk is no Skype, but to be fair, the app is still in its infancy. What seems to be clear, depending on whom you talk to, is that they see an opportunity in the inevitable IP telephony revolution, and are positioning themselves to become a player in that market.

For more information on Google Talk, read the article Google Enters the Peer to Peer VoIP Arena.

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 Posted by Jon Paul, VoIP Facts: The Blog at 1:11 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

Fixed Mobile Convergence: Bridging the Cellular Landline Divide

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Feb 092007
 

As more and more consumers opt out of traditional telephone services in favor of cellular phones, the undeniable trend in the telecommunications industry is the development of Fixed to Mobile Convergence, or FMC, to allow cell phones to seamlessly switch from the cellular network to a landline network infrastructure, and back again.

The dwindling revenues and loss of market share by the traditional telephone companies, along with the growing use of IP networks to carry data and voice, are spurring a business model that is transitioning from distance calling, to a model based on calling a person. For the consumer this means, for one thing, the inevitable extinction of long distance charges as we know them.

In an FMC environment, users would have the advantage of utilizing the cellular networks outside, never having to sacrifice connectivity for mobility. As the caller enters an indoor environment, a place where many cell calls get dropped, the converged handset would detect the presence of a wireless network and automatically switch to the lower frequency, preserving call quality throughout the transition.

The result of this would be the emergence of one caller, one phone, and one phone number for the transmission of data and voice. In a business environment, the transition could be made wirelessly through the corporate LANs PBX, whereas in a residential situation, the phone would detect wireless access points that connect directly to a broadband Internet connection, or the PSTN.

The key to the success of FMC is the hand set. While there are many models available today that are capable of switching from cellular to WiFi networks, widespread acceptance is presumed to be contingent on the dropping prices of the handsets, and the types of plans offered by the carriers.

With the release of the Apple iPhone, it was announced that Cingular Communications (now at&t wireless) would be the carrier responsible for cellular communication, and presumably, the implementer of cell to WiFi calling plans.

One current example of fixed to mobile convergence is the new at&t unity plan. With the acquisition of the Cingular wireless network and all its subscribers, at&t is offering a community calling plan that allows users to call nationwide to any of at&t’s wireless or wireline numbers free of charge.

It is expected that by the year 2010, the idea of Fixed Mobile Convergence will be well entrenched in the telecommunications industry.

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 Posted by Jon Paul, VoIP Facts: The Blog at 11:26 am  Tagged with: , , ,

Business VoIP and the Converged Network

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Jan 252007
 

For years businesses have been forced to maintain two separate networks, the local area network for data, and a telephone network, or PBX, for their telecommunications needs.
 
Converging the two networks into one is not a new idea, and in fact has been around since the eighties. At first, the idea was to merge the data onto the voice network, or the circut switched telephone network.
 
With the widespread acceptance of the Internet Protocol in the nineties, and the subsequent boom of the World Wide Web and its infrastructure, the emergence of a technology converting the analog voice into digital packets and routing them over the internet came to fruition. This technology came to be known as Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP.

As a connectionless protocol, IP was not very well suited for time sensitive data such as video and voice. Tweaks had to be made, and came in the form of a suite of protocols known as Quality of Service, or QoS. QoS prioritizes time sensitive data packets, assuring that they arrive at their destination on time and in sequence. Consequently, the sound quality of voice traveling over the Internet has become as good as, if not better, than most well connected cell phone calls.

Today, the converged network has become a reality. Companies are realizing major cost savings by maintaining one network instead of two, and long distance and international toll charges compare extremely favorably to calls made over traditional telephone lines. Technological innovations in E-commerce such as voice enabled websites have become a reality thanks to the development of VoIP.

VoIP solutions for SMBs are varied and plentiful. Peer to peer VoIP providers like Skype allow anyone on the network to communicate worldwide for free. Software IP PBX solutions such as the open source Asterix can be downloaded and installed for free, and Internet phones exist that are themselves small computers, loaded with PBX software that allows them to join the network and configure themselves independently of human intervention. For more robust needs, hardware solutions such as Cisco’s CallManager can be loaded on an IOS router or a Linux server, handling up to 30,000 IP phones.

Such issues as security concern many SMBs today, and just like any IP network, it is imperative that network managers stay on top and well informed. Be that as it may, considering the advantages of voice over the Internet, technologists are working diligently to improve quality and security. As Voice over IP technology becomes more mainstream, converged networks will continue to proliferate.

Read the Article VoIP for Business: The Converged Network

 Posted by Jon Paul, VoIP Facts: The Blog at 1:09 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

Choosing the Right Broadband Connection for VoIP

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Jan 222007
 

For people wanting to use VoIP telephony, one important consideration is the type of broadband connection to choose. Here is a rundown of the three most common options available to the residental consumer – cable modem, DSL, and the wireless network. “The most important factor in determining the quality of the call is the quality of the pipe.” 

While not absolutely necessary, a broadband Internet connection is what makes your Internet phone calls reliable, and understandable. VoIP uses a traffic engineering term called Quality of Service (QoS) that refers to the implementation of controls to ensure that delay sensitive IP packets are prioritized as they flow through the pipe. To forgo these controls would result in acoustic problems like jitter and echo, as well as dropped calls. Because a broadband pipe is much larger than a dial up connection, there is much more throughput capacity, or space, to allow us to prioritize.

There are basically three ways for the residential consumer to obtain a broadband Internet connection, from your cable television provider, your telephone company, or a wireless network. With these options becoming increasingly more wide spread, utilizing the Internet to route your phone calls has also become a viable and cost saving alternative to traditional landline telephony. Now the question becomes, which type of broadband service is best suited for voice over Internet protocol?

Read the entire article
Choosing a Broadband Connection for VoIP

 Posted by Jon Paul, VoIP Facts: The Blog at 12:40 pm  Tagged with: , , ,

Advantages of IP Telephony for the Residential Consumer

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Jan 132007
 

 

Businesses have for some time now been utilizing Voice over IP Telephony through the building of Converged Networks. As VoIP technology matures and the network pipe grows ever larger, LANs that existed primarily for data transmission are being converted to handle all types of media based on the Internet Protocol. With a well established infrastructure of fiber optic trunk lines, Wide Area Networks can carry much more traffic at much higher speeds than they could have in the early nineties. The next step in the evolution of networking for businesses large and small is one network that handles transmissions of data, video, and voice. The Converged Network.

The same can now be said for the modern residential household. As more of us are building our own local area networks at home to connect our family members to each others data and appliances, broadband connections to the outside world have expanded our pipe to the Internet, giving us plenty of bandwidth to consider converging our home network with VoIP.

But why switch?  When one considers the services and costs offered by VoIP providers compared to traditional telephone companies, the reasons are compelling.

First and foremost, the financial savings of talking on the Internet, as opposed to using the Telco’s copper lines, can be significant. In some cases up to 60%. This is best illustrated with long distance calls. As calls are routed over the Internet, they will indeed eventually be switched over to landlines, but not until they reach their destinations local switching station. To the telephone company, this looks like a local call and is thus free.

Pretty much all VoIP service providers offer free calls within the U.S. and Canada, with some including Puerto Rico and even certain destinations in Europe. International rates are significantly lower than Telco rates and many destinations are as low as 1 or 2 cents a minute. Rates may jump when crossing over to a cell phone network, but are still the lowest to be had.

Different countries handle VoIP calls and rates differently. Panama taxes VoIP calls as do many other countries that have a nationalized telecommunications industry. Even so, International VoIP rates have never been as low. It’s just much more cost efficient to route calls over the Internet.

Much like the cell phone industry, most pure play VoIP providers such as Vonage or Packet8 offer various calling plans to suit your individual needs. NetZero offers one of the lowest plans with 100 minutes for $3.95 a month. Vonage has a 500 minute plan for about $15 and Packet8 has unlimited minutes for $20. Even the cell phone companies with their free in network calls can’t compete price wise.

Services provided by Vonage and others compare favorably to local phone companies. Voice mail, call waiting, caller ID, call forwarding, and 3-way calling are standard features with most providers, whereas a local phone company may bundle these features and charge for them. Local number porting allows you to transfer your existing phone number in most cases and premium features such as multiple phone numbers and toll free 800 numbers can be had for around $5 a month.

Some services not offered by the phone companies are the Virtual Phone Number, allowing you to have numbers in different area codes, and Voice Mail to E mail which lets you check your messages from a computer. In fact, many providers offer a soft phone – a software application that turns your laptop, PC or MAC, into a video/telecommunications center.

Voice over IP Telephony may not be for everybody. There are some disadvantages that we cover in the post “Things to Consider Before Switching“. But if you are tired of $80 dollar phone bills and being nickled and dimed for every little add on, then VoIP is definitely a new consumer technology that you should look into.

Visit our website VoIP-Facts.net for more about Voice over IP Telephony.

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 Posted by Jon Paul, VoIP Facts: The Blog at 10:35 am  Tagged with: , , , ,

Residential VoIP: Things to Consider Before Switching

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Jan 122007
 

 

While Voice over IP Telephony has proven to be a viable and cost saving alternative to the traditional Telco’s for the small business community, there are some drawbacks that the residential consumer should consider before making the switch.

Power Outages

Because your VoIP service utilizes a broadband connection and the hardware plugs into the wall, if a power outage should occur, you would have no telephone service. If you are using a cable modem and your ISP experiences an outage, you would also have no phone service. However, many VoIP providers offer call forwarding at no extra charge, thus allowing the call to be automatically forwarded to your cell phone.

In the case of extreme disaster situations, i.e. a hurricane or tsunami, even cell phone service could be disrupted, but so probably would traditional landline telephone service.

Emergency Services

Most networks, including your broadband Internet service provider, employ the DHCP protocol, dispersing dynamic IP addresses to the nodes on the network. While your IP address will usually remain the same when you are online, if you turn off your computer for any amount of time, your address will more than likely change. It is for this reason that makes it difficult to pin down devices on a network to a specific geographic location.

The most serious drawback of VoIP in the household is that your service provider may not be able to map emergency service calls such as 911 to your physical address, or to properly route the call to your local call center. Indeed, so serious is this matter that the FCC has mandated that service provider’s deal with it by implementing Enhanced 911, and they are doing so in their own ways.

Cable and telephone companies usually deal with fixed residences and know your address already, making it easier to comply with the FCC’s mandate. The pure play providers, such as Vonage or Packet8, provide the consumer with the ability to have phone numbers in different area codes, and deal with a much more mobile road warrior type of consumer. An advantage of the nature of VoIP prized by many.

The pure plays could just pay to connect to the already established local phone companies 911 systems, but many have balked, preferring to develop their own E911 technology. For now, most providers do offer 911 services to fixed addresses by having the customer activate 911 at sign up.

Local Listings

If you choose a pure play provider for your residential VoIP, more than likely, you will not be listed in your local white pages, but check to be sure. Of course, if you choose your local phone company as your provider, you will be. Check with your cable company if you are considering them as your provider to see if you will be listed in your local white pages.

There are many white page directories on the internet – not the same thing, but an option nevertheless.

The yellow pages are a paid directory, so if you have a business, you still can exercise this option.
Faxing with VoIP

Faxing a document involves scanning it, converting the data into sound, and transmitting the sounds over a copper telephone line to their destination. Sounds do not travel well over the internet. In IP telephony, the standard T.38 was developed to convert the fax sound into sendable data, much like VoIP converts the human voice. Another standard called T37 can send faxes as either an email attachment or a remote printout using the Internet Printing Protocol. Many providers offer a separate fax line for an extra charge.

Choosing VoIP over traditional telephone services has its pros and cons just like anything else. It is up to the consumer to weigh the advantages and disadvantages, and to come to a conclusion with eyes wide open.

 Posted by Jon Paul, VoIP Facts: The Blog at 1:58 pm  Tagged with: , , ,
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