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A Brief Introduction to VoIP.
VoIP stand for Voice-over-Internet protocol. At a very basic level it is the idea of
using a data network to transfer voice between two points. Although voip has
become a buzz word in recent years has it origins as far back as the early
1970s. The pioneering work of Danny Cohen at the University of Southern
California first tested the Network Voice
Protocol (NVP) in December 1973.
Although
voip seems to imply that it can only carry voice across the network the reality
is that voip can be used to communicate voice, data and video across the
network if the software and hardware is in place.
Voip
works by taking the voice and sampling it. Most of us have recorded our voice
to a digital device be it a computer, a mobile phone or a digital dictaphone.
You can even get applications for iPODs to record your voice. The voice samples
are converted into data and then stored on the device to be played back at a
later date. Voip works in the same way, taking the voice, sampling it and converting
it into binary data. The different is that data isn't stored locally but the
samples are transferred them via the network to the recipient at the other end.
In
order for the data to flow smoothly from one point to the other the samples are
compressed with a CODEC and sliced into packets or smaller samples. These
packets are then pulsed across the network and reassembled at the other end,
decompressed and played backed. The whole process is so quick that the users do
not notice the process taking place. If the process does become slowed down
then jitter can take place. The voice or video then becomes choppy or glitch
ridden. In order to over come the problem a fast
Ethernet network dedicated to voip improves the flow of data.
There
are two major types of equipment used for voip transmissions. The first is the
soft phone, this is a system that utilizes a computer with the addition of a
microphone and either headphones or speakers. The computer has software
installed that acts as the gateway to the network providing the sampling,
CODECS and the steaming of the data.
The
vast majority of Skype customers use the soft phone route when accessing the
service. Although Skype does provide handsets these are still pseudo soft
phones as Skype cannot be used with voip
analogue telephone adapters (ATAs) and therefore they are restricted to the
Skype network.
The other devices for using a
voip network are unsurprisingly called hard phones. These are stand alone
devices that look like a regular phone but instead of a phone jack they have an
internet cable that can be plugged directly into the network.
The advantages for a business
in installing a converged voip network are that by using a single network for
all communication the maintenance and deployment costs are keep controlled. In
order to set up a voip network you will need to find a secure voip provider who will be
able to install and run a a fast Ethernet network.
There are various Ethernet solutions and Ethernet connections in the market place. Interoute
have the largest single pan-European
network for voip provision and work for a variety of European governments in
voip provision.
Voip solution :
Voip Provider:
Business Voip:
Fast Ethernet Network
Ethernet solutions:
Ethernet over SDH
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information presented herein intended to substitute for the advice provided to you by any health care or other professional
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