VoIP Service - Getting in Touch With Personal Friends and Family Members

Submitted by: genwright

Communicating using the traditional land line has always been an expensive technology to use to make long distance phone calls. Imagine having a family member studying or working abroad. You are dying to make contact, but you just can't make calls as often as you would've liked just because of the hefty international call bills that you have to incur. Even when you do pick up the phone and call, the duration is always short and crisp because the clock is ticking. And that means money to the telephone company.

Fortunately, that is a thing of the past. Today, with the advancement of technology, you can make phone calls to anywhere you want in the world for free. This technology is known as VoIP, or Voice over IP. To make the concept easier to understand, let's start by taking a look at what an IP is.

IP is short for Internet Protocol. VoIP is possible because of the Internet, which is a public network. This network allows data transfer in digital format from one location to another. When the Internet first started, it was mostly just texts and images being transmitted over the Internet. It wasn't long before people try to experiment with voice. Developers was trying to find a way to convert voice data (which is in analog) into digital data. If they can do so successfully, they can makes use of the Internet to make voice calls. Over at the receiving end, the conversion process is then reversed (i.e. from digital back to analog) and the transmission is complete.

To convert voice data to digital data, special hardware or software is required. Usually, the setup is either:

a) Headphone and mic with IP software installed.

or

b) IP phone that can connect directly to the Internet (e.g. DSL line) for VoIP calls.

As the user, you don't have to worry about the setup. Usually, the VoIP company that you sign up with will provide the necessary tools for you. If there is any hardware that is required, a list of compatible hardware will be available for your reference. The networks call this equipment (both hardware and software) user agents. Major brand names include 3CX, DLINK, LINKSYS, Asterix, SNOM, and CISCO Systems. Configuration instructions for these user agents are also provided.

With this technology, you can now make phone calls to your family and friends in any part of the way without having to pay a single cent. If a voice call is between 2 members of the same network, there is absolutely no charge. A charge is incurred only when a member calls a land line (i.e. not a VoIP phone) or a mobile phone. Even then, the rates are much cheaper than traditional International calls.

In addition, as a member of a voice network, you get to use a web based interface to get access to useful features such as call waiting, call barring, DID forwarding, etc. A username and password will be issued to you, and you can login any time to activate the features.