VOIP

VOIP has gained in popularity in today's world with both the individuals and businesses and can be a major competitor for the regular telephone.

Consumer VOIP

Many consumer-oriented VOIP services offer cheap or free voice calling. This can be done through a particular adaptor connecting to broadband services or a program similar to telephone on a home computer. Consumer VOIP services are an economical method of dialing into the public telephony network. Most of the times, there are many great bargains available for you. Skype lets you talk to others free of cost. The major problem with these services is that their mode of use is not obvious as it is more difficult than the regular phone. Also if the computer is involved in heavy processing, the sound quality can be affected. Good quality headphones, microphones and speakers should be used to prevent the distortion of the sounds and eliminate feedback or background noise.

Small to medium sized company VOIP

"Centrex" is a phone service, used by many VOIP services. It carries out all the central call controls and switching is generally done inside a box on the wall and is the remote internet hosting center, in a central server. It is usually called a “PBX”. Centrex services include telephones on the desks of the customers which connect out through broadband internet, to the PBX servers.

The benefits of this system are:

• Easy deployment by just plugging the phones into the internet.
• Lower costs as the phone service is carried out through the web.
• Lower capital expenditure due to elimination of the phone switches.
• Cheaper internal phone calls, especially between offices and employees in their homes (inter-site calls).
• Different unique methods of working and flexibility like highly distributed offices and increased number of people opting to work from home.