Definition
Internet telephony is the provision of communication services; voice, facsimile and voice messaging applications that are transported via the internet rather than the public switched telephone networks. The steps involved in originating a an internet telephone call are conversion of the analog voice signal to digital format and compression/translation of the signal into Internet protocol (IP) packets for transmission over the internet; the process is inverted at the other end (Hoffner 2009).
History
The idea came about with the invention of the internet phone software in 1985; the software was designed to run on a standard computer which was outfitted with a speaker, microphone, sound card and a modem. The software condensed voice signals and translated them in to internet protocol packets for broadcast over the internet.
How Voip works
Internet telephony has undergone a considerable amount of change since its invention, software builders’ present PC telephony software. Gateway servers have risen to operate as interfaces between the internet and the public switched telephone networks PSTN. The servers are equipped with voice processing cards which enable users to communicate via standard telephones. A call goes to the nearest network server via a public switched network; the gateway server then converts the analog voice signal received to a digital format, compresses it into internet protocol packets, and takes it to the internet for transmission to a gateway at the recipient end. VOip supports computer to telephone calls, telephone to computer calls and telephone to telephone calls (Hoffner 2009).
Intranet telephony
The limitation in current internet bandwidth and compression methods has reduces the quality and reliability of internet telephony. Many business corporations willing to cut down the cost of communication are therefore confining there internet telephony applications to there intranets. An intranet refers to a personal network that is contained within an enterprise it may consist of many interconnected local area networks that join to form a wide area network the main aim of intranets is to allow the sharing of organization information and resources among the employees. Intranets have a knowable bandwidth therefore they can maintain full duplex and actual time voice interactions (Martin et al 2009).
For example if an employee in London wants to make an end to end call to another employee in another corporation’s office in Manchester, he will dial an extension to connect to a gateway server, which contains a telephony board and compression conversion software; the gateway server will then configure the private branch exchange to convert the upcoming signal to a digital format. The employee will then dial the number in Manchester office, and the gateway server will transmit the digital packets over internet protocol based wide area network to the gateway at Manchester. The Manchester gateway then will translate the digital signal to analog signal and convey it to the target employee (Martin et al 2009).
Advantages
VOip offers great cost savings as compared with public switched telephone networks because users can evade public switched networks long distance carriers and there rates that are charged per minute and run voice traffic over the internet for a flat monthly internet access fee.
Internet telephony within an intranet enables users to save communication bills because they enable business corporations to make end to end calls through gateway servers available in local area networks. No telephone software or internet account is needed.
Disadvantages
VOip does not offer reliable high quality voice service as public switched networks does this is because of the limitations in network bandwidth that leads to packet loss, this is witnessed in the form of spaces of silence in communication, such type of communication is disappointing to business entities (International engineering consortium).
Another disadvantage of internet telephony is the delay of packet transmission that is caused by bandwidth jamming caused by the increased use of internet bandwidth also since the internet is packet switched, packets of each single signal travel on separate channels and are assembled later in the correct sequence at the recipient destination this method increases the chances of packet loss (International engineering consortium).
Lastly network dependability and sound excellence are procedures of the voice programming mechanisms and allied tone dispensation procedures of the gateway servers. Developers and vendors of telephony software use a range of communication
compression protocols; this protocol have diverse bit rates and techniques for regeneration of data packets this produces different levels of transparency and reliability in the voice signals transmitted via the internet .
VOip future
The main concern of VOip is the quality of voice service it has to offer, there are several encouraging areas for VOip which include intranets and commercial extranets, the internet protocol for this structures enable administrators control the access of the network (International engineering consortium).
VOip gateways are growing from personal computer based to strong rooted systems, this is an encouraging advancement in internet telephony since each gateway will be able to handle many concurrent calls, and business entities will use a lot of gateways so as to reduce expenses incurred when using lofty degree voice, fax and video congressing transfer. Companies in future will benefit from insertion of data, video, and voice over an internet protocol based network this is because internet protocol will work as a unifying means in spite of of the fundamental architecture of a company network.
An extranet is a computer network that allows prohibited admission of users from the exterior for particular commercial or educational purposes (International engineering consortium).
Commercial extranets in future will be based on conventional internet protocol networks and in turn will deliver voice over internet protocol and facsimile over internet protocol services to the general public, the extranets will make certain of dependable network support for the applications (Forte 2006).
Voip goods and services that will be transmitted through the unrestricted internet will be slot markets that will bear the unreliable presentation levels of the transmission medium. Telecommunications transmitters will rely on the general internet to offer telephone services amongst geographic areas that presently are lofty duty areas. *The public internet will be able to lever voice and video services effectively when changes are put in place one of the changes will be the raise in access speeds and strength of the bandwidth, the tiring of the public internet in which users will be needed to compensate for a particular service they need should also be put in place (Forte 2006).
Facsimile over internet protocol goods and services through the public internet will grow to be financial feasible and faster than voice and video, generally because the practical barriers are less demanding. Fax traffic will therefore be moved from the public service telephone network to the public internet and company intranet this will be via fascmile over internet protocol gateways and internet protocol competent fax machines (Forte 2006).
Conclusion
According to the research currently it is not viable for commercial organizations to rely too much on internet telephony as the main mean of communication because the method has a lot of setbacks, but in the near future the method will undergo a considerable amount of changes that will make it efficient and cost effective.
Works Cited
- Martin, Brown, DeHayes, Hoffner, Martin, Perkins. (2009) Managing Information Technology, 6th edition. Pearson Prentice Hall, 56-72
- Voice over internet protocol.
- The International engineering consortium: Intranets.
- Frank Forte(2006). Voice over internet protocol and its applicability. Rutgers.