How does VoIP Work?

VoIP, also known as Voice over Internet Protocol is a technology where your analog voice signals are turned into digital data so that you can make phone and video calls. The traditional communication tools are dependent on PSTN better known as a public switched telephone network; on the other hand, VoIP works over the internet.

How Does VoIP Work?

VoIP has a codec that decodes your voice and encodes it to make it digital; this process is called encoding and decoding. Codec’s main purpose is to highly compress the data so they can be transmitted smoothly and rapidly, thus resulting in a higher quality of the call. VoIP uses digital signals, unlike your traditional telephones which solely rely on PSTN analog data. When you use VoIP, your voice analog data is converted into digital signals. These digital signals are then decoded again in analog form and transferred to the person on the other line so they can listen and comprehend your voice. This entire process of you calling a person using VoIP takes place on the internet.

How are Calls made in VoIP?

There are three ways to make VoIP calls:

How Does VoIP Work for Businesses?

VoIP is gaining extreme popularity globally, in Australia for example, the use of the public switch network is declining day by day. Their government plans to replace those old phones with VoIP phones. Even the businesses in Australia are switching to VoIP as they find the services to be very flexible and much cheaper than traditional telephones. Following are the reasons behind this change;

Some Pros of VoIP service for Businesses

Businesses are adopting this service because it has several advantages such as VoIP comes with an extensive list of features. Caller ID, call forwarding, voicemails, call transfer, and call wait are all the features available in your traditional phone line, but the line service providers charge you extra fees for them to be used. Whereas, in VoIP, these services are preloaded and don’t charge you an additional penny.

VoIP is a very versatile option for your businesses as it can integrate with your old phones with the use of ATA. This way you don’t have to spend thousands of dollars on the installation of new hardware.

Since the call plans for local, international, and mobile are much cheaper than phone line providers, a business can save tons of cash. When we talk about flexibility and ease of installation, VoIP is the true king of phone services. You don’t have to call or wait for your line providers when you want to add another phone to your communication system. A voIP setup is relatively fast and is much more hassle-free than that of traditional phone lines.

For businesses where the employees are always on the move and want fast, reliable, secure and company-related communication tools, VoIP is the best option. With an internet connection and headset, employees who are out of the office or country can connect and communicate with their entire office. They can join and attend to other employees through conference calls as well.

Few Cons of VoIP service for Businesses

No matter how great having VoIP service is, there are a few disadvantages you might want to be aware of. VoIP needs a good internet connection; they don’t perform well in slower connections. The sound reception is not clear and crisp if you have a slower connection; this means that if you are planning to switch to VoIP service, make sure that you have a good internet connection.

Although extremely rare, it’s still possible to hack a VoIP system. The good news is that good VoIP service providers are known to provide secure connections, and they continuously update their malware and viruses databases.