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What is Internet Telephony ?
Internet Telephony refers to the
software and hardware that incorporates the facilities of
telephone services into your computer. In simple terms, it
enables people to make or receive calls anywhere in the world
through the internet. Internet telephony is a free service.
How does Internet telephony work ?
Internet telephony requires a free or fixed internet access
unlike the traditional telephone service which needs telephone
lines and circuit switches for voice communication. Internet
telephony uses the computer system to transmit the voice
signals. The voice signals are converted into digital signals
and are transmitted across the internet in “data packets” .Once
it reaches the destination, these data packets reassemble and
are converted back to analog signals and the receive is able to
hear the sender.
Benefits of Internet telephony
Internet telephony is a free service as long as you have your
own free or paid Internet access. It enables you to make long
distance calls free of telephone charges. The only requirement
is that both the sender and the receiver should have an Internet
access and Internet telephony software. In some cases when
internet telephony is used to call a landline or a cell phone
you might have to pay, although the charges are minimal. Free
phone numbers with internet telephony are available in the US,
UK and other countries.
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In this age of global business,
Internet telephony has helped in multi-state and multi-national
corporate PBXs where routine long distance calls are
significant. It also provides voice mail, video conversation,
message or data file exchange along with audio conferencing,
managing address books and also passing information to others
about others available online and other telephone services. The
VoIP software can be easily installed. It will be soon when
Internet telephony will replace the telephone service.
Since internet telephony has no geographical limitation, it
allows users to receive and make calls from anywhere. This is
the backbone of the BPO and IT industry allowing call centre
agents to function from anywhere with a stable internet
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What are
the different Internet telephony services ?
Voice over IP (VOIP) is a common telephony service available
over the internet or any IP- based network. It is also called
VoIP, IP Telephony, Internet Telephony, Broadband telephony,
Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband. There are various
internet telephony applications available. While some like Cool
Talk and Net Meeting are accompanied by popular web browsers,
others are stand alone ones. Some link the users to multiple
carriers using TDM and offers a free booth management system to
assist the users in billing the customers at the rates and
currencies that the users choose using a prepaid system. This is
a remedy to your billing worries.
What are the challenges of Internet
telephony ?
It becomes difficult to geographically locate network users
because of the nature of IP. Emergency calls are almost
impossible on some VOIP systems since they cannot be easily
routed to a nearby call center. On the other hand they are
routed to a non-emergency phone line at the intended department.
At times broadband connections do not have the required quality.
In highly congested networks, voice drop-out is possible when IP
packets are lost or delayed at any point between VOIP users. As
technology progresses the reliability and voice quality has
improved over time and it only promises to get better in the
future.
Another challenge of interne telephony is the inability to make
calls during power outages. This issue affects cordless phones
in particular because most often the base station does not have
a power back up option. The solution is to have a power back up
through an uninterrupted power supply. Another option is to
forward the calls to a cell phone or an alternate number. Today
modems are available with lithium ion battery back up so that no
external power is required.
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Inability to send faxes is another
challenge faced by most home systems. Efforts are under way to
remedy this issue by defining an alternative IP based solution.
The quality and reliability of a phone connection is entirely
dependent on the quality, speed and reliability of the internet
connection. Low quality internet connection and IPs affect VOIP.
High network latencies can result in reduced call quality and
cause other problems such as echoing etc. However the option to
use regular telephone lines and business grade connections for
voice services exist for the customer. Many VOIP users still
continue to use a traditional analogue voice line in order to
dial emergency numbers. The option to use a traditional fax
machine is also available to the customer.
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Article Contributed By: Sabina
Zacharias
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