What Is Voip

Introduction
VOIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol, or in more common terms phone service over the Internet.
If you have a reasonable quality Internet connection you can get phone service delivered through your Internet connection instead of from your local phone company.
Some people use VOIP in addition to their traditional phone service, since VOIP service providers usually offer lower rates than traditional phone companies, but sometimes doesn't offer
911 service, phone directory listings, 411 service, or other common phone services. While many VoIP providers offer these services, consistent industry-wide means of offering these are
still developing.
How does VOIP work?
A way is required to turn analog phone signals into digital signals that can be sent over the Internet.
This function can either be included into the phone itself or in a separate box like an ATA .
Applications using VOIP
Traditional telephony applications, such as outbound call center applications and inbound IVR applications, normally can be run on VOIP.
VOIP connecting directly.
It is also possible to bypass a VOIP Service Provider and directly connect to another VOIP user. However, if the VOIP devices are behind NAT routers, there may be problems with this
approach.
Voip Service providers
There are many providers out there, skype is a style of voip without all the control you would get with a company like ContactTel
Why use VOIP?
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 their Internet service, using VOIP over this service may not involve any
extra charges, so the users view the calls as free. There are a number of services that have sprung up to facilitate this type of "free" VOIP call. Examples are: Free World Dialup ,ContactTel and
Skype.
Increased Functionality

VOIP makes easy some things that are difficult to impossible with traditional phone networks.
* Incoming phone calls are automatically routed to your VOIP phone where ever you plug it into the network. Take your VOIP phone with you on a trip, and anywhere you connect it to the Internet, you can receive your incoming calls.
* Call center agents using VOIP phones can easily work from anywhere with a good Internet connection.
By: Mike Richards