If you’ve heard about the new technology called VoIP then now may just be the time to take a closer look at it and how it works.When Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone in 1865 he had no idea of the effects this complex device would have. After a series of refinements and developments in the field and more than a century later, VoIP was launched. VoIP simply stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. This popular service was started sometime in 1995 by some people who were carrying out PC-to-PC communications somewhere in Israel. The telephone that was initially seen as a device for hobbyists in Bell’s time, has since become an enterprising business.
In the year 1995 Vocaltec released the first software that was meant to function as an Internet telephone software. The advent of this invention challenged the traditional Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTN). Data packets sent through the Internet are easily sent at costs much cheaper than long distance charges on PSTN networks. The process of transmission breaks data and sends them to a receiver through routers with no circuit switching as in the case of PSTN. The system of the receiver would then reorder the data packets. The only requirement was that both the sender and receiver would have the same equipment. The software could be run on a simple Home PC and used sound cars, speakers, modem, microphone and the H.323 protocol. The voice quality was initially poor when compared to traditional telephones but over time the situation would improve.
Three years later VoIP has successfully cornered about 1% of the voice communications market. However its initial success was plagued by many problems. PC to phone followed by phone-to-phone communications was then established with the use of gateways. The transmission through the phone would initially include advertisements which would come just before and at the end of the message which reduced the costs and permitted companies offering these services to offer free calls to their customers. With the introduction of Ethernet services, voice quality became less of a problem. Static and connection problems between Internet and PSTN networks however would still exist.
At the same time the need of a computer in order to establish communications became void. In 1998 Cisco, Nortel and Lucent manufactured equipment that could successfully route and witch IP-based voice traffic. The switching capabilities allowed dtat packet switching to be similar to PSTN data and easily read by PSTN equipment. VoIP thus became less dependent on computers. Since hardware had become much more reasonably priced, companies started the implementation of VoIP on their internal IP networks. Long distance carriers started using the network as well. In the year 2000, VoIP traffic had increased to about 3% of the voice communications market share.
The new technology continues to grow. Voice quality issues have also been addressed and VoIP services are now able to offer a huge number of different services. The service is available to both business as well as residential users. It is also an exciting field which could see a number of changes and advancements in the near future. The amounts of competition in this area will ultimnately lead to better services as well as cheaper costs. In any case the end-user will be the final beneficiary.
