VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol is becoming more and more popular these days. People use VoIP for international calls as the costs are significantly lower than regular landline or mobile costs or sometimes even totally free. VoIP works by transmitting analog signals such as voice, fax, SMS and voice-messaging into digital signals which can be sent through the internet and not through Public Switched Telephone Network. In other words; VoIP lets you make phone calls and use other communication services through the internet. VoIP is preferred both for its price and ease of use. As VoIP works through the internet, it can be used anywhere you have an internet connection. This means that people travelling abroad can just take their phones or adapters with them.

There are three different types of VoIP calling

1. Analog telephone adapter: also knows as ATA or VoIP adapter. This is a simple device that allows you to connect your regular phones to your computer or internet for making VoIP calls. You can use your regular phone and service provider for most calls and then switch to VoIP when making international calls. The adapter converts the analog signals into digital ones.
2. IP Phones: these phones look and work like regular phones but they can connect to your internet connection without the need of an adaptor to convert the signals. IP phones come both cordless and corded which can be plugged directly into your internet router. Many types of IP phones offer additional services such as putting calls on hold, transferring to other extensions and multiple phone lines amongst others which makes them ideal for businesses.
3. PC to PC: this is the easiest type of VoIP communication. All you need is software on your computer, internet connection and a headset. No adapters or phones needed! There are many companies offering Pc to PC software and many offer additional services such as putting a call on hold, transferring to another extension and using multiple phone lines. You will need to pay a monthly fee for the software but calls are usually free. You can also have this type of software on your mobile phone, this software is called a softphone or mobile dialer. With a softphone you can make VoIP calls from your mobile phone. Using a softphone to make calls has an additional advantage – mobile phones are portable and can be used anywhere you want. You can also use your regular phone plan for normal calls and switch to VoIP for internal calls only.

There are loads of different VoIP providers out there. There are many different price ranges but you need to see what services each one is offering and also make sure the call quality is good. Many VoIP service providers provide services such as;

• caller ID
• call waiting
• call transfer
• repeating a call
• returning a call
• Three way calling.

Some services allow you to try out their software so get a friend to download it as well and see how it works.

HOW DOES VOIP WORK?

To understand how VoIP, works, it’s helpful to compare it to how regular phone calls operate.

Circuit switching

When you use a regular phone to make a call, it is connected with circuit switching. This is what we call Public Switched Telephone Network also known as PSTN. The system works by setting up a channel or circuit between the caller and receiver for the duration of the call. In the early days a dedicated copper wire had to connect the two ends in order to make a call. This is where the help of an operator service came in, they made sure the wires got connected. This type of connection was really expensive because you actually owned that piece of wire for the duration of the call, so if you made a call from India to the UK for example, you owned a piece of wire stretching from India to the UK.

Nowadays making phone calls is more efficient, as calls are digitized and automated electronic switching has replaced the manual switching. Fiber-optic cables are now used instead of the copper ones and with fiber-optic cables, thousands of voice signals can share the same cable. This means that you don’t actually own that wire anymore while making a call but you share it with many others.

The way the circuit works has stayed the same over the years. For the duration of the call a connection must be made. A standard amount of data – 960 KB gets used per minute that you are connected, and voice data is sent from both ends. A big part of this data gets lost though because both ends are not sending out voice signals at the same time, one is usually listening while the other talks and there is just silence at some points as well.

Another disadvantage of circuit switching is that it can only be used by one person at a time. So if you are making a call from a phone number, that number is now unavailable for use. It only becomes available again once you hang up.

Packet switching

When you make a VoIP call, it uses packet switching. Instead of keeping the connection open for the duration of the call as is the case with circuit switching, the connection only opens when there is something to send.

Let’s look at an example:

When you make a five minute phone call with circuit switching, you will be sending full data for all five minutes from both ends as the connection will be open all the times. When you make a call with packet switching, you could be calling for five minutes but you only send out data when there is something to send. You might only send out two minutes of data which frees up a lot of space that can be used by others.

The following happens anytime you send something through the internet such as e-mail, voice messages, images and also when you make VoIP calls.

• The file you are sending is broken up into ‘data packets’, so if you make a call, your voice signals will be divided into ‘data packets’. These packets can now be sent through the internet
• Every packet gets a ‘header’ with the IP address it is supposed to go to, information about the IP address it was sent from and the amount of packets the original data was divided into. Every packet also gets a number so that when the packets arrive at their destination they can be put together easily.
• The ‘data packets’ are sent out to a router near the sender and from there they get sent to another router and from there to another until they arrive at the router nearest to their destination. It is then send to the computer or phone of the recipient. When a piece of data is divided into small packets, all the packets can get to the same destination using a different pathway, meaning going through different routers as there are millions of ways to get from one end to another.
• The computer or phone from the recipient puts the packets together again using the numbers that were sent with the packets

This system has an added advantage that if a certain branch is broken or too busy, the routers will automatically send the data through another route.

HOW IS DATA SENT FROM ONE IP ADDRESS TO ANOTHER?

Codecs:

In order to send your voice signals to another IP address, codecs will be used. This is what we call encoding. Codecs stand for ‘coder-decoder’. Codecs convert the regular audio signals into the data packets. They do this by ‘sampling’ data several thousand times per second. The most common types of codec samples at 8000 times a second but it can also be 64.000 or 32.000 times per second. Every ‘sample’ is then digitized and compressed before being sent off.

This sounds very complicated but actually happens really fast and you don’t even realise so much is happening while you are making the calls. VoIP works with IP addresses that correspond to a certain PC, router, phone or other device.

The softswitch:

There are two types of soft switches; the class 4 softswitch and the class 5 softswitch.

• Class 4 softswitch is mainly used by local offices exchanges and carriers or carrier to carrier to avoid high cost calls when making long distance calls as the costs of calling with VoIP are significantly lower than with regular phone lines.
• Class 5 softswitch is mainly used by VoIP resellers to provide VoIP services to their clients. The class 5 softswitch can connect calls between regular phones and IP phones which makes them ideal for end users.

The class 5 softswitch can offer services for both VoIP phones and non-VoIP phones such as calling cards services which are used on regular phones. Class 5 soft switches are used mainly for local calls by end-users. If a client wants to make a long-distance call, the class 5 softswitch will usually send the request over to a class 4 softswitch. The softswitch is basically what allows the two end points to connect via the internet. The class 5 softswitch is mainly used when connecting circuit and packet networks, in other words when making a call between a regular phone and a VoIP phone.

When someone calls a phone number from a VoIP phone, the softswitch will convert that phone number into an IP address as VoIP only works with IP addresses and not phone numbers. The softswitch can easily find an IP address for a number and if it can’t it will send the request over to another softswitch until it has an answer. Once an IP address is found, the softswitch will send it over to the phone or PC from the sender in order for the address to be registered in the ‘header’ of the ‘data packets’.

IS VOIP FOR YOU?

As with every new technology there are many advantages and disadvantages to VoIP, so it is up to you to decide if you would like to use it or not and how much you’d like to use it. Obviously the main advantages are price and flexibility as mentioned earlier. Calls can be made whenever and wherever you want as long as you have an internet connection. Calls are also a fraction of the price of regular phone calls. VoIP also has some disadvantages and problems that need sorting out before VoIP can completely take over the communication market.

• Using your home phone for calling is an extremely reliable way of calling, it very rarely doesn’t work and most people do not have any problems with it. Even when your do not have any power, your phone will work (unless it is cordless). VoIP on the other hand, works with internet. If your internet is down – you won’t be able to use VoIP. This can be a major disadvantage if you have a power cut – you won’t be able to call. This could be solved by using battery backups or generators to provide electricity.
• A big problem with VoIP is also calling emergency services. When you are calling 911, your call gets diverted to the nearest call center for help, but they won’t know what call center to send the call to and where help should come from as VoIP can only read IP addresses and not geographical locations. Experts are working on this and are trying to find a solution to this problem. Some VoIP companies also offer solutions for this.
• Just as you can have malware, spamming and viruses in your internet, if you make calls through the internet, you can have them in your calls as well.
• You may experience periods of silence when data is lost or being unscrambled. Because VoIP calls need to arrive at their destination quickly, some parts might get lost or dropped
• The calling quality is not always good

VoIP is still in its beginning stages and hopefully within a few years’ time these problem will be sorted out. When people switch between regular phone lines and VoIP, and use free VoIP to make long-distance calls, they can cope when it doesn’t work properly and doesn’t have good call quality. But when businesses use VoIP to make their calls it is unacceptable to have bad quality calls. If a business decides to use VoIP to lower its calling costs it will usually perform quality checks on the VoIP software. Checks can be made both before they start using that VoIP software and while they are using it to make sure the call quality is satisfactory.

You have probably heard about VoIP technology, as there is a lot of “skype hype” out there and praises screamed from mountaintops about similar services. For those of you who do not already know, VoIP is an acronym for Voice Over Internet Protocol or Voice Over Internet Provider)However, as it is with anything new, you probably have a lot of questions which you need answered before you make the decision of investing in VoIP, or even switching over completely from land line telephone services to VoIP.

Do you remember in the not so distant past when only some us had cell phones, and those of us that did just kept them in the glove compartments of our cars, and used them only sparingly? Remember how expensive they used to be? Now look at us! We can’t leave home without them, and can barely function in this day and age without even having one. Well, the same kind of development and sudden demand that existed in cell phones is now prevalent in the VoIP industry – in fact, in a few short years, VoIP may replace not only conventional land line phones, but cellular phones as well. VoIP services represent an excellent savings for your pocket, and the efficiency with which VoIP services operate are unmatched when compared to any other type of telephone services. This is why it is of utmost importance for you to understand all of the advantages to VoIP now, rather than later, and get in on this new technology while the price is still right.

The Advantages of VoIP over Conventional Land line Telephones

VoIP technology provides its users with a wealth of benefits. If you already have a computer with a broadband connection, a router, a microphone, and/or headset, then you are already set up and ready to go with VoIP – you’re only halfway there. Having all of this set up ahead of time will prove to provide you with additional savings, which you can use to put towards VoIP service, and add any extra features you may want to your desired service package. Without further ado, here are some of the most popular advantages of VoIP services which have been shared with us in the past, and enjoyed by people just like you all over the world.

There is no need for a land line telephone anymore – While it is not absolutely necessary for you to pull out your conventional phone lines and throw them in the garbage, you will soon find them unnecessary, as VoIP will eliminate the need for any long distance services you will have. While these services are expensive and no longer necessary, you can save money by dropping long distance services from your land line telephones, or drop land line service altogether, as you will not have much more use for it while you are using VoIP. This benefit alone can cause you to become addicted to VoIP.

Last week our partners get together at telecom consulting firm  and by some inspection that was made by our software advisors revealed us the results of the survey made by them. The survey was about interactions of our customers with business enterprise using their phone. They have concluded some positive and negative factors about our brand. The main goal of survey report was to come up with list of instructions that was needed to small enterprises for the improvement of their service quality for their customers.

Survey Result Report:

Over all if we look at the report result we would get to know that people are happy to report their negative feelings which they experience while calling rather than reporting positive feelings about product. The graph below illustrates the customers complaints

A large group of customers reported an issue of unknown caller as you can see in the graph above unrecognized phone numbers complaint is 28%. Based on this result we can conclude that our all customers are highly anxious of unknown calls. This raise the question “Why don’t companies resolve this issue at high priority”?

Tackle the unidentified Caller problem

Usually the small business avoid to use a platform like IP-PBX which is found in other corporate environment while the basic communication products or solution hardly provide features which are required to solve the problem of unidentified caller. SMEs use previous data and make call for promotion operations only if when it has no other option left than exhibit business number or mask number. On the other hand IP-PBX reports the problems and try to generate alternative numbers which are specifically for this purpose.  The service provider, providing VoIP service to businesses value nothing as compare to that Platform like HERO is offering.  This is only one problem which is highlighted while there are many others therefore Robust PBX solution is demandable in now days business environment. Small business who think outbound calling is something serious and important feature to tackle should own and operate their own IP-PBX platform. To know more have a look at Software Advice report.

VoIP market today:

VoIP technology established in last 1990s, initially, adoption by developers and corporation was slow. In 2001, the business calls being conducted by using IP-based line in North America were less than 5%. By 2008, 80% of all new corporate lines installed VoIP lines.

In 2010, VoIP experienced a new phase of development as applications aimed at specific fields like hospitality, health and education.The enterprise and SME sedments have been the mist important contributors to increse VoIP adoption.Small and mid-sized businesses, which comprise an estimated 99% of all businesses in the United States and 98.2% of businesses in Canada, had largely steered clear of early VoIP offerings due to the technical & cost implications of installing an IP-based phone system..

As in 2015, VoIP technology was far from ubiquitous among SMEs. On the other hand, the growth rate in this segment is unparalleled, far exceeding the VoIP adoption rates among corporations in the early 2000s. This presents long-term industry actors with a number of exciting business opportunities for the coming years.

VoIP market trend in 2015:

The appeal of decrease costs and increase the flexibility has led to a marked up in the number of businesses which are abandoning on premise PBX systems for hosted PBX platforms. Cloud based solutions are the best way in future by innovation in technology that led to switch from on premise systems to hosted solutions in easier and more affordable way then ever.

Increse in demand create a major oppertunity for VoIP developers whom are specialise in both fueks on site and hoted solutions. In 2015, on premise VoIP PBX system have keep their place. Moreover all sizes of businesses are turning to cloud based soltions in order to decrease costs abd increase flexibility.

VoIP marker forecast for 2016:

In future VoIP services market is expected the gradually growth due to cost effectiveness, improving network infrastructure across the globe and rising demand for smart devices and mobility among corporate and individual consumers.

The rising competition among the telecommunication service providers and internet service providers across the industry is nourishing the growth of the market in terms of product and service differentiation. While the enterprise VoIP market has been experiencing a shift from traditional telephony using CDMA or GSM to VoIP services using cellular networks such as 3G and 4G for over a decade now. Many analysts hope the transition is now in the midst of a rapid acceleration phase.

Infonetics research expects strong worldwide growth in global VoIP services revenue through 2019, when it will reach $82.5 billion, largely due to expansion of the enterprise VoIP segment.

Cloud technology forecast 2016:

The growth in popularity of hosted (cloud-based) telephony solutions within the VoIP sector is part of a larger multi-sectorial trend that is moving businesses towards a cloud-based service delivery model. In some cases, technology providers are offering non-cloud options altogether – For example, in 2013 software giant Adobe began offering its creative suite product roster exclusively through a web-based monthly subscription.

The Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) delivery approach is expected to see its market share make great gains in the coming years. According to market research firm Forrester Research, the SaaS market – currently valued at $63 billion – is expected to reach a market value of 132.6 billion by 2020.

IP PBX Features for SMBs: The “Essentials”

IP-PBX has some very useful features which make it popular to be used among the SMBs. Is has a set of standard features which help to maximize productivity of all the employees whether they are PC-based workers or are road-warrior to SOHO enabled contractor. A number of the primary functions are shared with the Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS) PBX. Below are the IP-PBX features for SMBs.

• Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

Presenting a full-featured IVR system for better customer service can prove beneficial for the companies. This system will allow employees to access their voicemail and account information 24/7 all year long. One of the most important aspects of this feature is communication with the auto-attendant. This will enlace the callers to easily access a business corporate resources and information using a telephone keypad. The auto-attendant has features like language selection, call transfer and operator access. This will aid the SMBs to process client calls increasing the productivity without compromising on customer service.

• Advanced Voicemail

IP-PBX enables digital encoding of the voicemail messages. This gives the users ability to access, save, delete and forward them through computer along with the traditional telephone functions. By defining limits of the users in their profiles, the IP-PBX administrator selects how the voicemail storage is decided for users. It includes of the total number of received messages and the total disk space allowed for storage in the server.

• Advanced Call Forwarding

Advanced Call Forwarding allows to forward calls to a secondary telephone like to a colleague’s number or a different extension. It helps the callers locate an agent when they are out of the office or not available at the desk. This will help the users to not miss any important calls.

VoIP-exclusive IP-PBX Features: The “Modern Classics”

IP-PBX also has some unique features that are not found in TDM PBX systems, but they have been offered on VoIP-based platforms. These features offer substantial productivity advantages to SMBs.

• Unified Communications and Messaging

Unified communication allows the voice messages received in voice mailbox are also sent as e-mail to the user attached with a sound files. So they can also be listened and viewed within a browser-based application. This allows the users to access the voicemail from anywhere and can be forwarded conveniently.

• Hunt Group

This feature is a time-saving call transfer distribution mechanism. Varying call priority weights are assigned to one communal extension. When this extension is dialed, the highest priority weight user extension will ring and then the second highest prior and so on.

• Presence

SIP for Instant Messaging and Presence Leveraging Extensions (SIMPLE) is a standard found in advanced IP-PBX platforms.  Based on the assigned permission, preferences and presence status, processing logic determines the user settings. The status option consists of available, not available, busy, in a meeting, out for lunch and on vacation. When a certain status is flagged the calls are transferred to a different number. As customers are not kept on wait or hold enhancing the corporate productivity.

• Call Recording

This feature allows recording the phone conversations for verification of order, to monitor quality and training purposes. They are also saved in the user’s voice mailbox for any future use. These calls are also backed up on a server and in case of emergency can be recovered.