Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

VoIP Solutions - Getting Started

PC-to-PC Connections

To make and receive VoIP calls internally in your business you will each need a multimedia equipped PC (Pentium) or an Apple G4. You also need to be connected to some kind of network:

• Internet. If you have an always-on internet connection you can, in theory, phone any suitably equipped PC in the world free of charge. Home users who want to try the technology to call friends and relatives overseas can make do with a dial-up connection. But for serious business use, you need a high speed internet connection such as broadband.

If you have installed a firewall on your PC, you will need to make sure the VoIP software or hardware you use is compatible with it.

• Private networks. VoIP can work across almost any data network, including wireless or Ethernet-based LANs and Virtual Private Networks (VPN), as well as the internet itself. The quality of service depends on congestion and transmission speeds of the network in question.

On private networks, especially across a LAN, voice quality can be at least as good, often better, than traditional telephone calls. For geographically dispersed networks the key factor is to provide ad equate bandwidth, segregate data and VoIP traffic, and minimise network latency - that is, the time it takes for a network packet to travel from source to destination.