What's all of the VoIP about?

Over the last several years there has been a lot of talk about VoIP, or voice over Internet protocol (usually pronounced “voice over IP” or “voip”). In this column I will give you an overview of VoIP and describe some of the possible implementations for home office and small businesses.

To understand VoIP you must first have an understanding of traditional telephones. With a traditional telephone, your voice is converted to a signal and sent over copper pairs and/or fiber optic cable (or other medium like satellites).

The call reaches a central office/exchange and then is routed to a main exchange as necessary. The other end is alerted via a ringer and the loop is completed across the public phone network.

So what's different about the VoIP scenario that is creating all of the excitement?

VoIP technology conducts conversations over the Internet or IP (Internet protocol) network. Because it uses broadband connections such as cable Internet or DSL, VoIP allows you to leverage your current Internet service for voice communications. This can be very cost effective for the small office/home office user by eliminating the need for traditional, local and long distance phone services.

So how is it done? With a VoIP phone, your communications are converted into data that can be transmitted across the Internet (just like your email, downloads, etc.) instead of the public phone network. On the other end of the call, the party you are calling either receives the call through their normal telephone, VoIP phone, or cell phone.

In a nutshell, the communications are seamless to you and are conducted in a similar manner as with a traditional telephone. Additional features such as caller-id, voice mail, and call routing are all available with the different service providers.

There are many providers out there that offer VoIP services for the home office application. Sites like Vonage have hardware available in retail stores that allows you to use your current analog telephone by converting your conversation to digital data.

This means that installing VoIP in your home office is nearly as simple as purchasing one of these devices and plugging it in with your current broadband Internet connection.

In larger office implementations, your current telephone vendor may be able to install a VoIP system to replace your legacy telephone system PBX (private branch exchange). This means that you could spread the advantages of VoIP across your LAN (local area network) and manage a single data infrastructure.

In the larger scenario described above, communications could happen securely across the Internet along with giving access to telecommuters, branch offices, and mobile workers. This type of VoIP system is typically referred to as IPT or IP Telephony. Essentially, it is a VoIP implementation where voice communications are conducted across an IP network (your local or wide area network).

VoIP and IPT can be simple once you understand it but there is a bit more to it and some considerations you have to work through. As always, working with your technology provider will give you the best chance at a successful VoIP/IPT implementation.