VoIP in The Cloud

What is VoIP?

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol and refers to the communication technologies involved in the delivery of voice or multimedia communications over an IP Network (the internet). VoIP has been bought into the public eye a lot more recently due to the rise of Skype and other mainstream VoIP services. Development in mobile technology has also triggered a rise in VoIP activity from modern smartphones.

Early offerings of VoIP can be traced back as far as 1995. During this era VocalTec's internet phone service was ground breaking at the time and was a hit for early adopters of technology. Domestic users were hampered by weak (compared to modern day) technology and slow internet speeds; let's not forget that back in 1995 you were lucky to have any internet connection at all and 56k dial-up was the norm.

The early 2000's were when VoIP really started to progress as it was aided by the nationwide adoption of broadband - for the first time users had access to a connection that was fast enough and had the required bandwidth to use the service to its full potential.

In August 2003 the VoIP landscape was truly revolutionised with the entry of Skype. Skype allowed users to make desktop to desktop calls at the click of a button completely free of charge. By 2005 the Skype application allowed users to call landlines and mobiles from the computer at greatly discounted rates. By doing this Skype emerged as the market leader in the domestic market at least; they remain there to this day.

Advantages of VoIP

Using VoIP has a number of advantages compared to using a traditional telephone landline. The main advantage of the service is the reduced costs. VoIP calls are made available either free or at a very low cost - depending on the type and location of call being made. PC-to-PC can generally be made for free whereas calls to mobiles and landlines - national or international - can be made for a nominal fee. Some VoIP providers also offer unlimited calls to a certain geographical area in return for a monthly fee.

VoIP is also ultra-portable; meaning you can more or less make a call from anywhere with a working internet connection. This is applicable even with phone to phone VoIP as your number won't change wherever you plug it in.

More advantages will be added at a later date

Disadvantages of VoIP

VoIP does indeed have its doubters and they are quick to point out some of the potential disadvantages of VoIP.

One disadvantage which isn't really arguable is that VoIP phones need power to function whereas a regular phone is kept in service through the phone line. In regular usage this isn't an issue but it may become an issue if there was a blackout - especially if this was for a prolonged period.

Another notable disadvantage for VoIP is the difficulty in making emergency calls. Some VoIP providers in the UK simply do not allow you to call the emergency 999 services while with the ones that do it can be difficult for the emergency services to track your location.

With certain VoIP providers in certain situations the call quality can be poor making the conversation difficult to understand or incoherent. This disadvantage is being overcome with the advancement in technology and the improvement with internet connectivity.

VoIP in the Cloud

VoIP has slowly but surely been taking the market away from traditional landline connections in the past few years - especially in the business market. Similarly, Cloud Computing has been the buzzword in IT that you just can't shake in the past few years. As the cloud is reaching maturity, many VoIP service providers are switching to the cloud for a number of reasons.

The most cited reason for this is cost. It costs a lot of money to run and maintain your own data centres. Cloud Computing helps to reduce these costs if not completely eliminate them. Technical staff is also expensive and by switching to the cloud the need for them is greatly reduced.

A debatable point - but a point none the less - is that switching to the cloud can help to improve reliability. As mentioned earlier, VoIP has been growing in popularity in the past years and due to this peoples' reliance on it has also increased; because of this downtime is no longer acceptable so reliability is a must. Cloud service provides extra backups that enable them to overcome power failure or hardware crashes.

The Future of VoIP

As mobile technology continues to evolved, mobile providers continue to make data limits a bigger part of overall mobile phone plans. Industry experts are noting the fact that the distinction between voice and data services is becoming increasingly difficult to identify.

Industry experts are now predicting that the future of VoIP is in fact mobile VoIP. The indications that point to this becoming reality are becoming thick and fast. There is now free VoIP software/apps available for all main mobile platforms (Android, iOS and Blackberry and Windows) and as mentioned above, data allowances are increasing. The arrival of the 4G mobile network in the UK will only accelerate this change and you have to wonder whether mobile networks will be finding traditional mobile calls becoming obsolete.

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Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/7487939

Title: VoIP in The Cloud
by:om at 2013-02-08T07:28:00+07:00
Rating: 4.8 of 5 Reviews
VoIP in The Cloud