Voip

After researching technology in the business world, the latest and most progressive form of messaging I could find to speak about was VoIP. The definition of VoIP is, “a voice messaging technology that enables voice messages to be sent via the Internet, often simultaneously with data in text or other forms. Full form: voice over Internet protocol(dictionary.com) After explaining this brief definition, I will further explain how VoIP works, the forms of using VoIP, as well as it’s pros and cons.

Although VoIP is very popular and well known, one might have a hard time understanding how it works, but before I explain how VoIP works it is important to understand how analog phones work. Basically how a traditional phone system works is by taking an analog signal, which is simply a vibration, and transmitting the vibration through a copper wire. The vibration is then sent through a switch system known as the Public Switched Telephone Network, or PSTN. Analog transmission is very similar to the idea of connecting two cups by a string and listening to the vibrations on each end. Although this method did work, it was very expensive. It also occupied a lot of KBPS. A 10 minute open circuit phone call from New York to Los Angeles would be 128 KBPs of data. The PSTN is still used today, but is much more efficient due to the introduction of optic fiber wires. This differs from copper wire because optic wire is able to transmit more people through the cable than copper.

So how does VoIP work? What VoIP does is turn these analog signals into digital data. Digital data is different than analog transmission through a cable due to the fact that it can be send via broadband. The terminology behind this method is known as, “Packet Switching.” “Packet switching is the dividing of messages into packets before they are sent, transmitting each packet individually, and then reassembling them into the original message once all of them have arrived at the intended...