There seems to be a real misunderstanding surrounding VoIP. So many of the people I speak with assume that installing a new VoIP phone system means they won’t ever have to pay long distance again. OR, that a VoIP system by its vary nature supports Unified Messaging.
What I will do, over the course of the the next many articles, is explain what VoIP is and how it works ?
IP (as in Vo IP) means Internet Protocol, or in the data world, means packets. Essentially, what happens in VoIP is that voice packets are compressed into streams of data packets (IP packets), sent along the data path to their destination (the person at the other end of the phone), uncompressed, and played back at the other end. Now, that is a very simplistic explanation, and encapsulated within that very brief description are some fairly critical underlying issues which need to be further analyzed.
The key term in the above explanation is “Data Path”. What data path are the IP packets getting sent to? If the data path is the Internet, then the voice is subject to the vagrancies of the Internet itself – a poor quality data path will result in a similarly poor voice quality. If for example, the data path that the voice is getting transmitted to and from is excellent, then the voice quality will in turn be excellent. The Internet, and for that matter, LAN, is never perfect however – it is possible to have packet loss (where a packet just gets lost). Having said that, the basic foundation of good quality voice on the LAN is the (for those techs out there) LAYER 1. Layer 1 in a LAN is the wiring.
Stay tuned (and when I have more time), and I’ll keep this discussion going.
Jeff
Digitcom.ca, Resellers of Avaya and Cisco servicing the North American market – HO in Toronto
