What is VoIP?

Voice over Internet Protocol (Voice over IP, VoIP) is any of a family of methodologies, communication protocols, and transmission technologies for delivery of voice communications and multimedia sessions over Internet Protocol (IP) networks, such as the internet. Other terms frequently encountered and often used synonymously with VoIP are IP telephony, internet telephony, voice over broadband (VoBB), broadband telephony and broadband phone.

A typical VoIP set-up

An example of a typical home set-up including VoIP

Internet telephony refers to communications services — voice, fax, SMS, and/or voice-messaging applications — that are transported via the internet, rather than the public switched telephone network (PSTN). The steps involved in originating a VoIP telephone call are signalling and media channel set-up, digitization of the analogue voice signal, optionally compression, packetisation and transmission as Internet Protocol (IP) packets over a packet-switched network. On the receiving side similar steps reproduce the original voice stream.

More details are available on Wikipedia.

Bristol Wireless has been using VoIP successfully over its network for many years and can advise you about its features and its successful deployment within your organisation. Please contact us for further information.

Christian Wach has written 34 articles