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A Guide to VoIP
What is VoIP? Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the ability to transmit voice over the Internet to either a receiving computer, telephone or even a mobile phone. VoIP phone is becoming the popular worldwide telephone service for both...
A Little Help To Find You A VoIP Phone
Here's a collection of resources to help you learn what you REALLY need to know before you get yourself a VoIP Phone. Might help you make the best educated choice for YOU. CNet has an excellent extensive comparison and review of a number of...
Enterprise VoIP
Enterprise VoIP is making inroads among enterprises that cling
to their circuit switched voice networks. The lure of Enterprise
IP voice is having a single network to serve all modes of
communication. Enterprise VoIP introduces efficiencies into...
VoIP is the new communication paradigm
In a world where things happen pretty quickly, there is a quiet revolution going on around the world. It has been ten or more years in the making and threatenining to force a new paradigm shift in communication. Having its debut in Israel, and...
Will VoIP be a Mass Market Product?
A common thinking among "Marketing people " is that for every product that enters the market there must be a path, a target, a need ( real or created) that decides how the product must enter the consumer's life, which part of the population is...
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VoIP Phone Hype.....Phooey
I hold no ill will towards marketing, but do become offended when someone feels I should lose my critical analysis skills and buy into marketing hype.
For example - revolutionary new technology allowing 1 digit calling? Easy connect to VoIP via cell phone? Yada yada...hype & emotion... &..well you get the idea.
The way VoIP works, there are several critical aspects to insure anything close to toll quality calling. First is the instrument used. Next is the inside wiring. Assuming both of these are not a problem, the access line becomes the next major factor. Here there are 3 points. First is quality of the access line - its ability to deliver error free bit streams. Next is the bandwidth. As a shared application, the bandwidth must be sufficient to serve the needs of both VoIP and all other applications simultaneously. Third is the logical distribution of that bandwidth. In effect, the bandwidth must be split between VoIP and the other traffic to insure VoIP has a consistent available rate of communications between the premise and the POP.
Getting all of the above correct is not trivial, and those who attempt a pure plug and play approach stand a fair chance in being disappointed with their VoIP service. But let's assume this all goes well (at both ends for an end to end VoIP call). The next issue is travel over the Internet from ingress POP to egress POP. Different carriers have different paths, which impacts latency. A VoIP session is probably the most sensitive to latency of all common applications (although live video is probably the most sensitive). The carrier incentive is to keep as much traffic as possible on their own facility. This is a business need, not a technical need, but it does impact the quality of service users experience. Multiple carriers provides protection against failure, but it does not
insure true shortest path routing. More important than multiple carriers is the ability and willingness to purchase priority transport of packets based on IP header information or other protocol approaches, so that a VoIP call continues as a high priority session and with sufficient bandwidth across the carrier's network.
Finally, there is the placing of calls to standard phones. This is where the PSTN gateway comes into play.
Now what parts of the total technical aspects will your service control? This is where the hype goes away and critical thinking comes into play.
Don't believe because many of us here have technical experience we lack business sense. Or vice versa.
The second issue is just how is the revenue stream divided between delivery costs, marketing, administration, and sales points? What are the volumes required for a breakeven scenario? What is the estimated market cap? Does the promised opportunity stand up to critical analysis of the business plan? Is capital sufficient to reach breakeven revenue streams? Are the processes in place to deal with service problems even if the problem is outside of your control, in order to retain good will in the market space?
Many of us are interested in a logical analysis of both the business and technical aspects. Just don't try blowing the preverbial "smoke up our butt".
Whew....I think I'll get a cold drink now.
About the Author
Michael is the owner of FreedomFire Communications http://ld.net/mscprez and http://DS3-Bandwidth.com .......delivering choices to both residential and business consumers for voice and data broadband services. Michael also authors BroadBand Nation http://BroadBand-Nation.blogspot.com where you're always welcome to to drop in and catch up on the latest BroadBand news, tips, and ramblings for the masses.
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| Voice over IP - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
| Encyclopedia article with background information, technical details, and the advantages and disadvantages of VoIP. |
| en.wikipedia.org |
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| Voice-Over-Internet Protocol |
| An overview of VoIP from the Federal Communications Commission. With news, FAQs, factsheets, and findings. |
| www.fcc.gov |
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| voip-info.org - voip-info.org |
| A wiki that covers VoIP software, hardware, service providers, reviews, configurations, and standards. |
| www.voip-info.org |
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| Howstuffworks "How VoIP Works" |
| Voice over Internet Protocol lets you make free long-distance phone calls using your computer. It’s essentially a phone network that uses the Internet ... |
| www.howstuffworks.com |
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| VOIP.ORG.UK - The UK resource for IP telephony |
| UK resource with the emphasis on small businesses and home users. Includes news, reviews, and forums. |
| www.voip.org.uk |
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| Packet8: VoIP Internet Phone Service Provider and Voice Over IP ... |
| Packet8 offers VoIP Internet Phone Service and Voice Over IP Telephony phone systems. |
| www.packet8.net |
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| Voip |
| 1-800-TRY-VOIP; Voip.com: do more, pay less. Use a broadband connection and your voip.com adapter to make and receive calls using a regular phone. |
| www.voip.com |
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| Vonage - Leading the Internet Phone Revolution |
| Use your high-speed Internet connection to make all of your phone calls with Vonage digital phone service. Plans start at $14.99 per month. |
| www.vonage.com |
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| VoipBuster - The Free* Calls Company |
| Free* phone calls with the VoipBuster. Call your online friends for free as well as a special selection of popular international destinations. |
| www.voipbuster.com |
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| The VoIP Weblog |
| OK, VoIP customers, the $24.99 a month party is just about over. ... The issue definitely kept me from switching to a VoIP service for over a year because I ... |
| voip.weblogsinc.com |
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| IVR Platforms / IVR Hosting / IVR Development |
| Get to market quickly with our A to Z VoIP platforms and services >> ... Our IVR and VOIP hosting, turnkey platforms, and developer services - powered by ... |
| www.voxeo.com |
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| VoIP |
| Connecting a business to a VoIP network doesn’t require a big, expensive integration overhaul. Quintum’s VoIP access solutions are designed with “integrated ... |
| www.tmcnet.com |
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| VoIP - Internet Telephony |
| voip, Internet Telephony Magazine. ... Internet Telephony is the leading VoIP magazine in the world covering all topics VoIP. ... |
| www.tmcnet.com |
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| Convergence & VoIP - Network World |
| The Convergence & VoIP research center is your source for the latest convergence and VoIP news, analysis and research links from Network World. |
| www.networkworld.com |
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| VoIP News - Enterprise, Carrier, Small Business VoIP Information |
| VoIP news, trends, experts, product reviews. Carrier and enterprise-class voice over ip. |
| www.voip-news.com |
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| O'Reilly Network -- What Is VoIP |
| Ted Wallingford looks at why the VoIP technology, the key ingredient in Vonage, Skype, Cisco CallManager, and a host of other technology products, ... |
| www.oreillynet.com |
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| What is VoIP? - A Word Definition From the Webopedia Computer ... |
| This page describes the term VoIP and lists other pages on the Web where you can find additional information. |
| www.webopedia.com |
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| Access >> VoIP | CNET News.com |
| EarthLink expands VoIP service. Eight more cities will get access to Net phone service that requires no ... Verizon sues Vonage for VoIP patent infringement ... |
| news.com.com |
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| Pages tagged with "voip" on del.icio.us |
| All items tagged voip ??? view popular ... SunRocket Internet Phone Service · save this. by dbrogdon to VOIP ... saved by 18 other people ... 3 hours ago ... |
| del.icio.us |
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| VoIP (Voice Over IP) Solutions - AudioCodes |
| VoIP, VoP Chip Processors and Voice over IP packets solutions developed by AudioCodes, leaders in the VoIP market for VoIP equipment and VoIP technology. |
| www.audiocodes.com |
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