Important Infomation About Voip

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I Have Done This Blog So People Can Know All they Need To Know About Voip Before They Choose The Wrong Or Right provider i will Be giving All the informtaion I have About Providers And Experaince pleas ealso send in if you have any storys about using any voip provider.

First Of:

General Inforation about voip.

Voice-over-Internet protocol VoIP is a protocol optimized for the transmission of voice through the Internet or other Packet-switched networks. VoIP is often used abstractly to refer to the actual transmission of voice (rather than the protocol implementing it). VoIP allows users to use regular telephone networks anywhere through any internet service provider, and avoids issues on long distance charges that are normally subject to callers. This latter concept is also referred to as IP telephony, Internet telephony, voice over broadband, broadband telephony, and broadband phone.
VoIP providers may be viewed as commercial realizations of the experimental Network Voice Protocol (1973) invented for the ARPANET providers. VoIP can be a great benefit to major corporations trying to cut costs by simply running network cables. Although it requires those using VoIP to have a well configured network it is a new use of IP that is extremely cost efficient. Vodini and Subicom are great examples of how VoIP is being greatly utilized world wide. Voice-over-IP systems carry telephony signals as digital audio, typically reduced in data rate using speech data compression techniques, encapsulated in a data-packet stream over IP.
There are two types of PSTN-to-VoIP services: Direct Inward Dialing (DID) and access numbers. DID will connect a caller directly to the VoIP user, while access numbers require the caller to provide an extension number for the called VoIP user

History Of VOIP

Voice-over-Internet Protocol has been a subject of interest almost since the first computer network. By 1973, voice was being transmitted over the early Internet. The technology for transmitting voice conversations over the Internet has been available to end-users since at least the early 1980s. In 1996, a shrink-wrapped software product called VocalTec Internet Phone (release 4) provided VoIP along with extra features such as voicemail and Caller ID. However, it did not offer a gateway to the PSTN, so it was only possible to speak to other Vocaltec Internet Phone users. In 1997, Level began development of its first softswitch (a term they invented in 1998); softswitches were designed to replace traditional hardware telephone switches by serving as gateways between telephone networks.
Revenue in the total VoIP industry in the US is set to grow by 24.3% in 2008 to $3.19 billion. Subscriber growth will drive revenue in the VoIP sector, with numbers expected to rise by 21.2% in 2008 to 16.6 million. One Of The United States' largest VoIP provider is Vodini.

Reliability Of Voip

Conventional phones are connected directly to telephone company Phone Lines, which in the event of a Power Failure are kept functioning by backup generators or batteries located at the telephone Exchange. However, IP Phones and the IP infrastructure connect to (routers and Servers), which typically depend on the availability of mains Electricity or another locally generated power source. Therefore, most VoIP networks and the supporting routers and servers are also on widely available and relatively inexpensive Uninterrupted Power Supply (UPS) systems to maintain electricity during a power outage for a predetermined length of time. The amount of time typically ranges from as little as an hour and up from there, depending on the quality of the UPS unit and the power draw and characteristics of the communications equipment.
Voice travels over the internet in almost the same manner as data does in packets. So when you talk over an IP network your conversation is broken up into small packets. These voice and data packets travel over the same network with a fixed bandwidth. This system is more prone to congestion and DOS attacks than traditional circuit switched systems.
To increase the reliability of VoIP phones, the VoIP providers needs to increase dedicated and redundant connectivity via T1 access and backup DSL, with automatic failover at each location. The company can create a reliable network by reducing the number of single points of failure and providing its own UPS or other backup power generators on site.

Security For VOIP Users

Many consumer VoIP solutions do not support encryption yet, although having a secure phone is much easier to implement with VoIP than traditional phone lines. As a result, it is relatively easy to eavesdrop on VoIP calls and even change their content. An attacker with a packet sniffer could intercept your VoIP calls if you are not on a secure VLAN. This security vulnerability could lead to Denial of Service (DoS) attacks to you and anyone on your network. The DoS would devastate your phone network by creating a continuing busy signal and forced disconnects. Viper Lab predicts VoIP attacks against service providers will escalate since unlicensed mobile access technology becomes more widely deployed to allow calls to switch from cell networks to VoIP networks, Viper Labs warns that "service providers are, for the first time, allowing subscribers to have direct access to mobile core networks over IP, making it easier to spoof identities and use illegal accounts to launch a variety of attacks.[16] There is no such thing as a 100% secure solution to network security. The implementation of voice over internet protocol just adds to that complexity, by giving hackers another means to access your system. Customers can secure their network by limiting access to the virtual local area network, thus hiding their voice data network from the users. If the customer maintains a secure and properly configured gateway, you can keep most of the hackers out.There are several open source solutions that facilitate sniffing of VoIP conversations. A modicum of security is afforded due to patented audio codecs that are not easily available for open source applications, however such security through obscurity has not proven effective in the long run in other fields. Some vendors also use compression to make eavesdropping more difficult Like You Will Find Though Vodini. However, real security requires encryption and cryptographic authentication which are not widely available at a consumer level Accept at Vodini.com. The existing secure standard SRTP and the new ZRTP protocol is available on Analog Telephone Adapters (ATAs) as well as various softphones. It is possible to use IPsec to secure P2P VoIP by using opportunistic encryption.
The Voice VPN solution provides secure voice for enterprise VoIP networks by applying IPSec encryption to the digitized voice stream.

I Hope All This Information Has Put Your Mind a bit more at easy when using voip.

i will be adding a list of recommended voip providers soon as possible. thanks again for reading