-Ever-

So I've been hearing about Voice over Internet Protocol for a while now. I know the theory has been around for ages, but mags like Wired have been picking up on the trends for at least a year now.
I'm wondering if you guys know anything about it and the companies emerging to offer it. I'm considering talking my dad into buying some stock because if VoIP does go big, it'd going to be absolutely huge.
I guess I'm just looking to strike some convo and gather some general info.
Care to give some comments?
-T

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Redjake

At our last AITP meeting (Association for Information Technology Professionals) we had the president and founder of a company that does primarily VoIP stuff. Very interesting stuff he talked about.

His company just got done installing an entire system in a lawyer firm. 100+ clients in one building. Each telephone is a touch screen and completely digitized (the signal). You can talk to 8 people at once (using the same line!). Your computer hooks into the telephone itself using a RJ-45 jack (CAT-5 or something), and the telephone runs into the wall. The telephone isn't even powered by an AC adapter or anything at all! The LAN cable powers the telephone itself. Something about unused cables within a LAN cable or something he mentioned.

He said they are hitting it big, and that businesses are constantly wanting to stay on top of things, so they are going for it. That installation he mentioned was like 250,000 bucks. Not sure what the profit margin was.


Some downsides (that he mentioned): If too many people are hogging bandwith on the internet (which is on the computer, which is connected to the telephone, which is connected to the network, instead of a regular phone line) your signal may become weak and static/distortion may occur. There is a neural network constantly working to pretty much pre-cog what you are gonna say next in the conversation, so it tries to emulate what your words will be before you finish each one. That way distortion and choppiness is kept to a minimum. Still a hassle though.

He said it's not going away any time soon, and that it's the wave of the future.




Also, the best part, since everything is networked basically, if you have two networks that are connected, you can talk to someone on the other network without having to "dial out." In other words, (and he said this is already being done), if you have two networks that are across the entire state (that are connected through broadband or satellite or anything), you can call those people without being charged long distance.

EVEN BETTER, since you are connected to their network, which is connected to the regular phone lines in that city, you can call anywhere in your city or THEIR CITY for free. Good stuff.

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shakran

Got any more info on that part? That's VERY interesting. I'd like to see how it works.

flamingpeach

We use vonage. (www.vonage.com) Its great, we get free calling to Canada and all across america for our monthly fee. Works great, sounds great, and isn't expenisve.

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Cynthetiq

what's really cool is being able to plug your phone to anywhere in the country on the network and it rings when people call you.

IMHO because it doesn't fall under telecommunications as a public utility and there are no governing bodies or regulations I'm not converting just yet.

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Redjake

It uses voice patterns or the like to emulate what the rest of your word will be. Like if you were to say the word "computer," and you said "comp," in the same dialect as the rest of the word, the network would just fill in the first part of "puter" for you, using your voice. It can emulate your voice because it converts your voice into data...so all it's doing is reproducing data. Disclaimer: It doesn't do entire words or anything It just fills in vowels and stuff that is dropped due to bandwith limitations

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shakran

does it ever get stuff wrong? For instance, if I said "comptroller" could it come out on the other end as "compuoller?"

I've used voip but had no idea this technology was being used with it.

Mephisto2

I've had a VoIP phone on my desk, and in my home office, for over 3.5 years. This technology will definitely replace POTS (Plain Old Telephone System) in the coming years.

Conceptually, it's very simple. You "digitize" the analogue signal and then send it over your data network in embedded IP packets. It's no different from "steaming video" you see on the internet.

The main challenges for VoIP solutions revolve around "feature equivalency" with PABXs; these have been around for decades and VoIP is still relatively new. Effectively, a VoIP solution replaces your PABX with a server that manages all the call routing etc.

Most VoIP networks are internal to a company. That is, it replaces your old phone system in the office, but you still interface with the PSTN (or POTS) network for sending calls outside. Some companies, mine included, do send voice traffic over their data WANs, but only from site to site. For sending/receiving calls to those who don't have VoIP, you simpy use a gateway.

VoIP is definitely something worth considering for long-term investment.

Some of the major players are Cisco, Avaya and Symbol.

If you want more information, just let me know...


Mr Mephisto

-Ever-

Great, thanks Mr Mephisto. I'll probably be PM'ing you in a bit with some specific questions
Take care
-T

__________________
Embracing the goddess energy within yourselves will bring all of you to a new understanding and valuing of life. A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet Earth. Like a priceless jewel buried in dark layers of soil and stone, Earth radiates her brilliant beauty into the caverns of space and time. Perhaps you are aware of those who watch over your home And experience of this place to visit and play with reality. You are becoming aware of yourself as a gamemaster...
--Acknowledge your weaknesses--

Fallon

Along with what Mr Mephisto the problem with VoIP over the Internet is that voice packets need to be at someone elses place quickly and not slow like with dl's and such. Also, you can't have VoIP packets coming in at a random order because if you have a message and lets over simplify it as The world is big. break it up into packets 1, 2, 3, 4. Each word is put into each number packet. What you'd want is each packet to come in in the right order, but over the Internet, each packet may take a seperate route, so they might come in 1, 3, 4, 2. Which could be an issue. So right now companies are working on trying to get it so that the VoIP packets can get thru quicker then standard data packets. At least thats what my network engineering teacher was telling us.

Mephisto2

To add to what Fallon says, and despite a lot of hype you hear about it on the net, the primary market for VoIP is NOT aimed at routing voice traffic over the Internet. Such products exist, but the big players are making products to replace your existing PABX and possibly send voice over your existing WAN links. The Internet simply has too much lag to support voice reliably. Until such time as the Internet introduces some kind of QoS (Quality of Service), then you won't see large-scale deployments of VoIP on public IP networks.

Where you WILL see a lot of VoIP is in large companies (like my own) that don't want to have to install two seperate networks; one for data and one for voice. VoIP offers many many advantages over "old style" voice solutions. You can introduce richer content and services (video and context information, smart telephones, XML applications etc), you can SAVE MONEY by sending some of your voice traffic over your WAN (if you're a big company with many offices in many sites, you're already paying for a data network between them so why not use if for voice too and avoid paying telephone bills), you can get significant RETURN ON INVESTMENT by implementing dynamice and intelligent Least Cost Call Routing, you can converge your data and voice networks...

The list goes on and on.

Don't let the hype put you off. VoIP is getting big and is going to be huge. However, at least for the moment, it's NOT about sending voice over the internet (apart from small dinky companies and toys etc), but it IS about converging data and voice.

Sometime in the future, when the Internet is a more reliable, more speedy network, you will see all the old telephone companies die. That's why the likes of the BabyBells, ROTCs, telecom providers and SPs are either shitting themselves or jumping on the bandwagon.

Mr Mephisto

Fallon

Also, if you wanna learn some of the technical info about VoIP, you can look at http://www.protocols.com/pbook/VoIP.htm
Near the bottom, they got some setup info. Hope that gives you some good info.

-Ever-

Hey thanks a lot guys. Very informational. I was originally looking for some simple comments like "VoIP sucks" or "It's hot hot hot!", and I wound up getting some in-depth lessons in a nutshell! I appreciate your ideas.
I'll check out that website and look into current issues and where it stands.
Thanks again
-Tim

__________________
Embracing the goddess energy within yourselves will bring all of you to a new understanding and valuing of life. A vision that inspires you to live and love on planet Earth. Like a priceless jewel buried in dark layers of soil and stone, Earth radiates her brilliant beauty into the caverns of space and time. Perhaps you are aware of those who watch over your home And experience of this place to visit and play with reality. You are becoming aware of yourself as a gamemaster...
--Acknowledge your weaknesses--

a2k

From what I've heard, Cisco is becoming the one to beat in VoIP hardware (go figure - routing IP packets is their business, after all). Their call manager can do some pretty cool stuff and so can their phones. You can push HTML to the phone screen with a call - imagine seeing not just the customer name of who is calling, but their order history, any outstanding customer-service issues they have open, and a list of recent emails with them when the phone rings.

I had Vonage for a few months but got sick of people asking me "to call back from a land line". Also, about 20% of the time, I couldn't get a call through. Just got a fast beep or nothing at all.

There's an opensource Linux-based PBX that'll do VoIP that seems pretty powerful called. Asterisk. Check it at www.asterisk.org.

tkkfan

At work we have 3com voip phones. Model 2102pe. Does anyone know how to program the phones? Our sys admin went out and bought the phones, hired someone to install it and make it work, but noone knows how to program the phones. (I work for MAJOR cheapskate dumbasses) I dont give a shit if they know how to do it, I want to know for my personal one. I have searched the internet high and low and can find nothing.

If anyone can help, id appreciate it

http://www.inpath.com/3comnbx2102pe.html

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Mephisto2

tkkfan,

We're a Cisco house, so unfortunately I can't help you.


Mr Mephisto

billege

We use Avaya, and I've not figured those damn things out yet. Luck.

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