VOICE OVER INTERNET PROTOCOL

INTRODUCTION

VoIP (voice over IP - that is, voice delivered using the Internet Protocol) is a term used in IP telephony for a set of facilities for managing the delivery of voice information using the Internet Protocol (IP). In general, this means sending voice information in digital form in discrete packets rather than in the traditional circuit-committed protocols of the public switched telephone network (PSTN). A major advantage of VoIP and Internet telephony is that it avoids the tolls charged by ordinary telephone service

VoIP is therefore telephony using a packet based network instead of the PSTN (circuit switched).

During the early 90's the Internet was beginning its commercial spread. The Internet Protocol (IP), part of the TCP/IP suite (developed by the U.S. Department of Defense to link dissimilar computers across many kinds of data networks) seemed to have the necessary qualities to become the successor of the PSTN.

The first VoIP application was introduced in 1995 - an "Internet Phone". An Israeli company by the name of "VocalTec" was the one developing this application. The application was designed to run on a basic PC. The idea was to compress the voice signal and translate it into IP packets for transmission over the Internet. This "first generation" VoIP application suffered from delays (due to congestion), disconnection, low quality (both due to lost and out of order packets) and incompatibility.

VocalTec's Internet phone was a significant breakthrough, although the application's many problems prevented it from becoming a popular product. Since this step IP telephony has developed rapidly. The most significant development is gateways that act as an interface between IP and PSTN networks.