What is Voice Over IP ? Why use VOIP?

In more common terms, VOIP or Voice Over IP Phone is phone service over the Internet or is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol. If you a person who has Internet then you can get this phone service delivered through that Internet connection instead of from your local phone company.

Many people use VOIP with their traditional phone service, since Voice Over IP Phone companies or VOIP service providers provide lower rates than traditional phone providers, but sometimes does not provide 911 service, 411 service, phone directory listings or other  phone services. Many VoIP providers provide these services, consistent industry-wide means of offering these are still developing.

A VOIP company provides VoIP Business Phone Systems or VoIP phone systems. Its main products are EXTender, Upgraded Hardware Products, PBXgateway, PBX platforms etc.

What is required is to turn analog phone signals into digital signals which can be sent over the Internet. This is the function that can either be included into the phone itself or in a separate box such as an ATA .

Traditional telephony applications like inbound IVR applications and outbound call center applications can be run on VOIP.

There are two main reasons to use VOIP are:
1. Increased functionality
2. Lower Cost

Increased Functionality: VOIP makes easy some things which are  tough or impossible with traditional phone networks.

Incoming phone calls are routed to your VOIP phone automatically where ever you plug it into the network. Take your VOIP phone with you and anywhere you connect it to the Internet, you can get your incoming calls. By using VOIP phones, call center agents can easily work from anywhere with a good Internet connection.

In common phone service via VOIP costs much less than equivalent service from traditional sources. This is a function of traditional phone services either being government or monopolies entities. There are also some cost savings because of using a single network to carry data and voice. This is true when users have existing under-utilized network capacity which they can use for VOIP without any extra costs.

In most of the case, users see VOIP phone calls even international calls as free. While there is a cost for their Internet service, using VOIP over this service may not include any additional charges, so the users view the calls as free. There are numerous services that have sprung up to facilitate this type of free VOIP call.

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