First
of all what is VoIP and why all of the commotion about it?
VoIP
stands for Voice over Internet Protocol and is the ability
to route telephone calls over the internet. Traditional
phone calling uses a dedicated network called the Public
Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) to carry a voice call
from one destination to another. This requires access to
and the use of facilities owned by companies such as BellSouth,
AT&T, MCI and many others. These services have been
available for decades and have proven to be a very reliable
mechanism to transmit information across the street and
around the world. However, it does traditionally cost users
for access and service over the PSTN.
The
internet, however has shown to be a good vehicle to transmit
data, video and voice at very cost effective and sometime
free
There
are two major reasons to use VOIP
• Lower Cost
• Increased functionality
Lower
Cost
In general phone service via VOIP costs less than equivalent
service from traditional sources. This is largely a function
of traditional phone services either being monopolies or
government entities. There are also some cost savings due
to using a single network to carry voice and data. This
is especially true when users have existing under-utilized
network capacity that they can use for VOIP without any
additional costs.
In
the most extreme case, users see VOIP phone calls (even
international) as FREE. While there is a cost for Internet
service, and equipment, using VOIP over this service may
not involve any extra charges, so the users view the calls
as free calling.
Increased Functionality
VOIP makes easy some things that are difficult to impossible
with traditional phone networks.
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