VoIP expands to Voice over Internet Protocol. Not to sound technical and confuse you with more technicalities and mumbo-jumbo scientific jargon, it’s a simple, down-to-earth way of saying that it is a telephone service but over the internet. To say, all you need is a normal telephone box, but along with that, you would need a good stable internet connection, an analog telephone adapter, and a power cable to set up VoIP phone service at the home, office, or anywhere else.The old way of phone connection was provided by a telephone company that you signed up with. They would set up the connection by pulling a wire from the neighborhood junction box to your location and supplying the telephone box. Their power is also required, as everything would be handled thru the wire itself. The backend infrastructure was all set up by the telephone company and all you could do was to make and receive calls (and that too, voice-based and not video-based).
The infrastructure
to make sure that the call that was placed was exorbitantly high as it needed a
lot of power, junction boxes, hardware, and other things – with the worst part
being all this was only to make and receive voice-based calls and nothing else
could be shared. The other terrible thing was all this needed a lot of wiring.
So for example, if you were in Miami, FL and wanted to make a call to your
associate who lived in Seattle, WA, the call would go from your telephone
instrument to the local junction box to the neighborhood telephone switch box
to the community telephone center to the regional call receiving station and
this would then be passed to the area headquarters who would then hand over
this to district signaling point where it would then go thru the same path in
the reverse order to finally reach out to the receiver in Seattle, WA. Now all
this would take place on the traditional phone lines – from the start to the
end. Now imagine, the telephone line could be broken at any place and for any
reason – an act of nature like typhoon or heavy rains, an accident by a truck
hitting some telephone pole, a rodent biting the wire somewhere two feet below
the ground, or even a cut done purposefully to create harm and disturbance.
Hence a backup mechanism of phone lines too was needed to jump on the alternate
if the primary goes down for any reason. Along with this, was the cost of
maintenance to make sure both the primary and backup systems are working well
at all times. Maintenance needs manpower, supplies, and technical know-how. So
now you can imagine how highly expensive it was, just to place voice calls and
nothing else.
Then came the
internet. Initially, it was the boring old-fashioned dial-up services, and then
came the broadband internet which promised better speeds and higher
bandwidths.
Now the maximum
transfer of data transfer is known as bandwidth. So higher bandwidths meant
more data could be sent and better speeds meant this higher data could be sent
at a faster velocity. Along with this, the technology of the internet enabled
us to send out emails with attachments, messages, and other things like
pictures and videos. So if all this could be sent over the internet, the notion
and idea of sending voice thru the internet were also thought of.
And hence VoIP was
born.
Now all kinds of
data are sent in packets and a digital form. So to send voice it had to be sent
in packets and that too in digital form. Here comes the adapter that I spoke
about earlier.
This adapter
changes the voice spoken in an analog form and converts this to a digital form
and because these digitalized voice packets are to be sent thru the internet,
it was termed as VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol.
In short,
Oridinary Phone
----- Adapter ----- Router ----- Internet ----- VoIP service provider (like
Unovon)
Why use VoIP?
This is because of
2 reasons – fewer costs and more functionalities.
Less cost because
we are using the same internet hardware, software, and technology to also make
and receive calls vis-à-vis older telephone lines where you can only use them
to make calls and nothing else. So for the cost of signing up for internet
services, you can not only browse websites but also talk to your loved ones.
More functionality because calls thru VoIP can not only be voice-based calls
but also video-based calls, with the best part being VoIP based calls can be placed
and received even if you are on the move, on a holiday, or even going overseas
and being marooned in an island thousands and thousands of miles away from
home. You must be wondering how? Well, that’s where the app comes into the
picture, which means as long as you can access the internet, you could launch
the app on your mobile and make and/or receive calls. That’s the added
functionality that the older generation landlines don’t have and can't give
you.
This is how VoIP service providers like Unovon came in. They have set up the hardware to have
your digital packets sent out to the calling party and have connected to the
telephone company to make sure that the call connects to the number that you
wish to call. Now Unovon’s reach is quite good because, with a single plan with
a low monthly fee of $9.99 plus taxes and fees, a subscriber can call 60+
countries without paying anything extra. A down-to-earth bargain that you can
only dream of. Not only that, you could be roaming internationally and still make
and receive calls on the same number without the mobile telephone company
ripping you with the sky-high international roaming charges. Hence the
popularity of VoIP service providers is soaring as they give out so many
services for a fee that the traditional service providers can only think of,
and that too for ONLY voice-based calls with you being stuck in one place to
make and receive calls.
