Providers, Components, Emergency services

Providers

Despite the fact that VoIP standards are still developing, providers are already flooding the market with products and services while forming partnerships and matching expertise to strengthen their position in this new market. The biggest of these players and alliances—the ones who have the size and experience to grasp technical issues and quickly build infrastructures over which to offer VoIP services—are able to keep up with (and often influence) the continual changes in this market and keep rolling out new services.

Components

A VoIP system depends on devices that connect your traditional phone or phone system to an IP network. Components that you’ll see in a VoIP system include:

•End-user devices

•Gateways or gatekeepers

•IPBXs

•IP Networks

End-user devices are usually VoIP telephones or PCs running VoIP software. End-user devices have their own IP address and make a direct connection to the IP network.

A gateway is a device that converts circuit-switched analog voice calls from a traditional PBX into VoIP packets and transmits them over an IP network either to another gateway or directly to an end-user device.

A gateway can have additional features such as voice compression, echo cancellation, and packet prioritization.

Because VoIP-enabled end-user devices can communicate directly with each other over an IP network, a gateway is not a required component of a VoIP system as long as the VoIP devices are connected directly to the IP network.

An IPBX is a PBX with a built-in gateway. IPBX systems are equipped for hundreds of telephone ports, with WAN support for trunk connections to the PSTN, and with high-speed IP WAN links. In addition to VoIP features, these systems usually include other features typical of traditional PBX systems such as music on hold, auto-attendant, and call management. Often, they include Ethernet ports to support VoIP telephones.

VoIP can be set up with or without a connection to standard PSTN phone service. You can, of course, place calls over the Internet directly from your PC or IP phone to another VoIP-enabled device. But what makes VoIP so versatile is that, through the use of a gateway service, it can also be used to call the numbers of phones connected to standard land-line or cellular phone services. They can also receive calls from standard telephones.

Not all fun and free calls

There are still things to consider when you’re deciding whether or not to invest in VoIP.

Regulation vagaries: Much of the government regulation of VoIP is still being worked out. The U.S. government hasn’t decided whether VoIP is going to be regulated as phone service or whether to tax it. VoIP isn’t available in all countries.

Compatibility: Although older VoIP equipment may still have some compatibility issues, current VoIP products from different vendors generally work together.

Cost: For all the popular talk about VoIP being free, it isn’t truly free. Any VoIP system has costs associated with its implementation—equipment, high-speed Internet access, and gateway service.

QoS: VoIP depends on having a fast, reliable network to operate. A fast network connection with guaranteed bandwidth is not a problem in a corporate intranet where you have complete control over the network. However, if you’re using the Internet for VoIP, you’re using a public network that may be subject to slowdowns that cause drop- outs and distortion. You may find that your high-speed Internet connection is faster than the actual Internet and that the quality of your connection is generally unacceptable or is unacceptable at times when Internet usage is high.

Emergency services

If you subscribe to a VoIP gateway service that enables you to use your VoIP phone like a regular phone, be aware that you may not be able to call 911 for emergencies. If 911 service is important to you because you don’t have an alternative way to call 911, shop for a VoIP provider who provides this service.

Consider, too, that VoIP needs both working Internet access and power to work. If you lose your Internet service, your phone goes, too. And, unlike regular phone service that can keep basic telephones working when the power goes out, VoIP needs power—if you lose power, you lose your phone.

Moving forward

Before VoIP technology becomes truly universal, the current worldwide PSTN will have to migrate to a packet- based IP equivalent. Industry inertia alone dictates this will not occur instantly. The current worldwide PSTN system has grown to what it is over a period of 125 years. Given the sheer complexity of the existing PSTN, the migration to an IP packet network will probably occur during several decades.

As migration from the PSTN to IP-based networks proceeds, businesses and home users will gradually discover reasons of their own to implement VoIP. It won’t happen right away, but we predict that VoIP will become a big part of telecommunications in the not-so-distant future.

Although it’s not quite as convenient as conventional phone service, VoIP can offer serious savings—particularly if you now regularly pay for multiple overseas phone calls. Keep in mind though, VoIP isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution. But with a little planning, VoIP could spell savings for you!

1/11/2008	724-746-5500	blackbox.com
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