Though Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) came into existence several years back, it recently has begun to take off as a public switched telephone networks (PSTN). This technology reduces costs with the help of single IP network to support data and voice applications. Service providers are also attracted by VoIP’s revenue potential. VoIP or Internet telephony is a technology which allows phone calls over the Internet.
It is necessary to know the basic network functions which allow voice services possible. Here is brief description how PSTN and VoIP networks use. Database services locate endpoints and translate between the addressing schemes in two networks. Signaling to coordinate the actions of the multiple networking components to complete a call between two endpoints. Call connect and disconnect mechanisms to transport audio content. Coder-decoder (CODEC) operations to convert analog waveforms to digital.
Packet switching sends a small chunk of data from one system to another which is called a packet. The payload is a piece of the e-mail, a music file or any type of file. The computer sends the packet to a router and router sends the packet to another router and so on.
A typical VoIP network has five major components. They are VoIP phones, consoles and other devices, Call Processing Server/PBX, Media/PSTN-to-VoIP Gateways, IP network, and Session Border Controllers (SBCs). The VoIP network needs media gateways to perform the CODEC functions, i.e., analog-to-digital conversion of voice traffic to create voice IP packets.
Conclusion:
Deploying VoIP is not a simple technology though VoIP is an attractive alternative to traditional PSTN voice services. Before having a VoIP solution, organizations must have required functionality and the potential issues to deploy a VoIP network. It is surely this protocol flexibility which makes VoIP-based voice systems more useful than legacy voice systems. For designing their VoIP solution, Organizations should also remember about latency, jitter, bandwidth, packet loss, reliability, and security issues.
Download Voice over Internet Protocol (Voip) Technical Paper Presentation.