Voip?

red_ice

Hey lads. Im trying to gather some information about Voice Over Internet Protocol for a friend.

Is there actual hardware needed for using VOIP? Whats the in's and out's of such technology?

How does it work?

Thanks

reD.

cerebus

As the name suggests, VoIP describes a set of facilities for managing the delivery of voice information using the Internet Protocol (IP). Voice information gets sent in digital form in discrete packets rather than in the traditional circuit-committed protocols of the PSTN.

The generic term "VoIP" is derived from the VoIP Forum, an industry body that was run by Cisco and others to promote the use of ITU-T H.323, the standard for sending voice (audio) and video using IP on the public Internet and within an intranet.

Check the H.323 spec for some technical details if you're interested. There are also a number of other protocols that are used to try and ensure reasonable quality of service (QoS), etc.

Hardware-wise, network and switching gear needs to be VoIP aware to handle it properly (especially for connecting to the PSTN) - don't think anything in particular is needed at the end-user level (except maybe a speaker and a microphone... ). If you're looking for more details on this I can probably dig up some stuff on the network infrastructure side.

Software-wise, MS NetMeeting is one example of a product that uses H.323 for VoIP communication. There are lots of others.

Hope that helps.

Tom Dunne

Most of the Instant Messenger software (Yahoo! and Microfsoft and one for Linux, I can't remember it's name) allow Voip connections. When you are typing to a friend, there is usually a menu option to initiate voice conversation.

As cerebus mentioned, all you need is a microphone and speakers.

red_ice

excellent lads, thats everything i needed

rogerwilco and ventrillo are some other programs right? if so im sorted, thanks loads

reD.