VoIP Pros and Cons

Pros

One advantage of using VoIP is the cost of the service. Phone service using VoIP costs less than similar service offered from traditional phone services, especially in regards to long distance telephone calls. Long distance calls through VoIP are offered at flat rates, which will ultimately benefit the consumer. Also, VoIP allows the consumer to share its voice and data equipment, which means that the costs are also shared. In other words, if you have an Internet connection already in place, VoIP can be used at almost no extra cost, and any network capacity that you are not currently using can be used for making calls.

Another key benefit of using VoIP is the fact that incoming calls can be automatically routed to your VoIP phone regardless of where you are connected to the Internet. This is especially important for those who go on business trips.

VoIP phones can also be integrated with other Internet services, such as videoconferences and file transfers. A user can send or receive messages or data while on their VoIP phone.

Cons

One cause for concern with VoIP is emergency 911 service. Before the government stepped in, 911 was not an optional feature for VoIP service providers, and 911 calls made after-hours were not guaranteed to be routed to the local area's emergency call centers of the caller. However, the U.S. government required that all VoIP service providers make 911 service standard and functional by September 2005. Some VoIP service providers have appealed this deadline, so it would be wise for consumers to be sure of what their service provider's policy on 911 is.

Another disadvantage of the VoIP service is the lack of encryption, which means that it is relatively easy for someone to eavesdrop on a VoIP call and even change the content of the call. There are a few solutions to this problem, but they do not guarantee full security of any calls. Airtight security would require the user to utilize encryption and cryptographic authentication, which are not yet readily available to consumers.

A third drawback is the inconsistent sound quality of the calls made with VoIP. The sound quality is oftentimes fickle and calls often have delays and echoes as well. This means that some calls made with VoIP might not be as smooth and natural as calls made over landline phones.

VoIP - A Closer Look At Choosing An Internet Phone Service

Voice-over Internet protocol (VoIP) services are certainly becoming more and more popular and for the most part it's because they are a quality alternative to traditional landline and cell phone based calling plans. I'm no prophet but the future of the technology and how people make phone calls is definitely pointing towards VoIP.

As is the case with most new technologies trying to decipher through all the hype and claims is a daunting task indeed and with companies popping up left and right to grab their share of this ever increasing pie, it gets more challenging by the day.

So what do you do? Well, on the positive side, virtually all of these new web-based phone services (VoIP) are packed with features, including unlimited local and long-distance calls and yet, they cost less than most traditional plans. Another plus is how simple they are to set up. Most simply require that you plug your regular phone into an adapter connected to your computer.

Of course, what is and what isn't essential in any plan is debatable but a few "essentials" you may want to consider when choosing which VoIP provider to go with are outlined below.

Connection Compatibility
One of the few VoIP requirements is a high speed connection but with the ever expanding reach of broadband into all parts of the country access to a high speed connection is no longer restricted to just the major metropolitan areas. That being said, all high speed connections don't provide enough performance to handle IP calls, so before you start researching different service plans you should take a look at Test Your VoIP (http://www.testyourvoip.com) to see if your connection is up to snuff. The test is free and it should take less than 30 seconds.

Assess Your Calling Needs
You need to ask yourself a few questions before you go out and select a provider because if you don't know what you're looking for it's pretty difficult to find it. A few questions you should consider are: What do you want most out of your phone provider? Are you looking to just cut costs?

A basic plan that offers a bunch of long-distance minutes is extremely inexpensive and if that's all you care about perhaps that's the route you should take. On the other hand, if you want business flexibility you should consider a small business package that costs more, but adds services like conferencing, a separate fax line, even an 800 number.

Want to take it on the road? Vonage (http://www.vonage.com) and others offer "soft phone" services, which let you make and receive calls on your PC. Another option to consider is where you place the most calls. If you make a ton of international calls, you might want to consider one of the smaller players like Lingo (http://www.lingo.com), Broadvoice (http://www.broadvoice.com) or CingUCel (http://www.cingucell.com) that offer unlimited dialing to select countries. Another nice VoIP feature is that most providers treat calls to Canada as domestic long distance. Determine where you call the most and then match the most appropriate service to your needs.

Feature Comparison
Virtually all VoIP service packages will exceed the minimal call waiting and voice mail bundles of traditional phone services. One example, CallVantage (http://www.usa.att.com/callvantage/index.jsp?) from AT&T may cost a bit more than some but it includes a useful call forwarding capability that will try to find you by ringing up to five different phone numbers when you aren't home.

You'll have to decide after shopping around whether you feel comfortable going with one of the smaller startups or if you should stick with one of the big players. With the big players you'll usually pay $5 or $10 more per month more for the "peace of mind" of a well-known brand name like AT&T or Vonage (http://www.vonage.com) which are currently the two largest VoIP providers in the market.

Verizon VoiceWing (http://www22.verizon.com) is fairly new to this ever increasing niche but with its merger with MCI it operates under one of the biggest brands in the telephony world. Once again, it's clearly up to you and your comfort level but if a service has fewer than 100,000 subscribers, you may want to look closely before jumping in.

Cold Turkey
Like all new technology VoIP continues to improve and the result is better call quality and service levels but switching cold turkey may not be the best idea. With many providers offering 30-day money back guarantees (always read the terms carefully) you can test the waters and ease into the transition. Initially, you may want to consider switching to VoIP on a second line and then, if you're happy, make the full transition.

This article may be reproduced only in its entirety.

Kevin Erickson is an entrepreneur and writer. You'll find more of his work at: VoIP Solutions | Wireless Internet | Trade Shows

The Task Of VoIP Security

Voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) is not a new phenomenon. It has been around the business community for many years. But it's increasing popularity among average citizens looking for more affordable and technology-driven options in long distance telephone service is becoming quite the phenomenon. As with any "new" technology on the forefront, often the excitement of getting the product out and available to the public precludes any real consideration for issues such as security flaws. And the consumers often don't consider such problems until it is too late, like when they have fallen victim to a hacker. Just as traditional telephone systems are vulnerable to breaches in security, VOIP has its own, more complex security issues.

There has been very little implementation of VOIP security systems to date. More than likely, this is because there has been no really dangerous attack on an IP system yet. Most customers of VOIP are likely more interested in cost and quality than security at this point, have not heard of any notable attacks. Waiting for that to happen, though, can be a costly and inconvenient mistake. It is wise to consider being proactive in securing VOIP phone systems, just as an organization does not hesitate in securing their other information networks. Though security products seem costly now, as the demand for VOIP systems continue to increase, new VOIP security products will likely be developed down the road that can be incorporated into all-in-one applications to protect entire information networks. This will make the possibility of an organization totally securing its information and voice networks not so costly or daunting to consider.

There are a few characteristics of VOIP that are particularly vulnerable to security breaches, and subscribers to the service should be aware of these. With VOIP, call information is logged on call management boxes, where the VOIP services are also put into action. These boxes are vulnerable to viruses and hackers' attacks, which could result in a loss of data that might be considered confidential to the organization. This could have a snowball effect, compromising an organization's reliability and trust with customers or clients, and cost them a lot of money down the line in data retrieval and security upgrades. That is why it is important to consider VOIP security from the outset, and make certain that any data storage is safely guarded behind a firewall.

Another potentially defenseless aspect of VOIP is the gateway from which voice data is routed between the source and the destination. These gateways are extremely susceptible to attacks by hackers looking to gain the ability to make free telephone calls. Eavesdropping should be yet another worry of those subscribing to VOIP service. Hackers use special tools to find, store, play back, and even alter voice data that they track down. This can have devastating consequences for an organization that might deal in highly sensitive or confidential information. Encrypting VOIP voice traffic, using firewalls, and restricting access by using an alternate domain for VOIP traffic and restricting the use of that domain through an access list are but a few of the ways to cut any VOIP security issues off at the pass.

Not considering the potential security issues that could arise using VOIP phone technology is not wise. Waiting for something to happen and trying to solve the problem after the fact can be costly for an organization, both for its customers and associates and its bottom line. When email was a new and exciting technology, security was not thought much of, until worms and viruses began infesting the inboxes of people worldwide. And now it seems that email security measures are struggling to keep up with the potential dangers. Knowing that there is a potential for disaster, and being proactive in trying to prevent sensitive voice data from being hacked and stolen by investing in VOIP security systems on the outset is the best way to get the most out of VOIP phone technology.

Learn the essential information for picking the Voip provider / services at Voip Security

Will VoIP be a Mass Market Product?

 by: Patrizia

A common thinking among "Marketing people " is that for every product that enters the market there must be a path, a target, a need ( real or created) that decides how the product must enter the consumer's life, which part of the population is more likely to go for it, which niche it is going to fill and, most important "...certain things being stated, something other than what is stated follows of necessity from their being so." and that is the final issue: the price.

Depending on those anavoidable patterns a product is more or less ready for a certain market.

High technologically devices, the ones that offer perfect quality and cost a fortune will target the elitarian market, where the price has not big importance (on the contrary, if the price would be lower than what certain people can afford, the product wouldn't reach them) since it means luxury.

When a product ceases to be luxury and begins to be a need, then the mass market is ready. The product can enter 60% of consumers' lives, reach easily a good upgrade in the percentage and become " The New Product of the year 200....".

Let's consider the VoIP market.

Prior to recent theoretical work on social needs, the usual purpose of a product invoked individual (social) behaviors. We now know that these assumptions are not completely wrong.

Wrong would be NON considering them.

In systems where many people are free to choose between many options, a small subset of the whole offer will get a disproportionate amount of traffic (or attention, or income), even if no one of the system actively work towards such an outcome. This has nothing to do with moral weakness, selling out, or any other psychological explanation. The very act of choosing, spread widely enough and freely enough, creates a power law distribution.

Now, thanks to a series of breakthroughs in network theory by researchers we know that power law distributions tend to arise in social systems where many people express their preferences among many options. We also know that as the number of options rise, the curve becomes more extreme. This is a counter-intuitive finding - most of us would expect a rising number of choices to flatten the curve, but in fact, increasing the size of the system increases the gap between the #1 spot and the median spot.

In other words: give to the people the choice among desktop phones and mobile phones and the majority will choose what they think more convenient, in spite of the cost of the service.

In a way the cost of the service is the only left advantage in favour of the fixed telephony.

If the price was the same the desktop phones would disappear from the life of the average consumer (mass market consumer).

To see how freedom of choice could create such unequal distributions, consider a hypothetical population of a thousand people, each picking their favorite way of telecommunication. One way to model such a system is simply to assume that each person has an equal chance of liking each kind of telephony. This distribution would be basically flat - most kind of telephony will have the same number of people listing it as a favorite. A few will be more popular than average and a few less, of course, but that will be statistical noise. The bulk of the telephony will be of average popularity, and the highs and lows will not be too far different from this average. In this model, neither the quality of the voice, the availability, the design of the device nor other people's choices have any effect; there are no shared tastes, no preferred genres, no effects from marketing or recommendations from friends.

This is the mass market of VoIP as dreamed and forecasted by most hardware producers.

People would choose VoIP in spite of the fact that the systems are not intercommunicating, the available phones are just desktop phones, most of the population doesn't have a "Flat rate DSL" and some do not even have a decent connection, (just one " UP to...) and just because VoIP means cutting cost.

They have a few wrong assumptions:

1. Most of the people want to save calling internationally

2. Most of the people will use a cheap Flat rate connection

3. Most of the people know how to handle a computer or a network, and so solve all the eventual problems that could arise.

But they do not consider that:

1. Most people call locally and just a few once in a while internationally.

2. Most of the people do not have a cheap flat rate Internet

3. Most of the people are not IT experts.

Besides people's choices do affect one another. If we assume that any kind of telephony chosen by one user is more likely, by even a fractional amount, to be chosen by another user, the system changes dramatically.

If Robert (our average mass market consumer) likes to have a phone in his pocket, available mostly anywhere, it is very likely that Mary would like the same.

Is VoIp ready for the "Mass Market"?

The answer could be No and Yes.

What would VoIP offer more than the existing several choices?

1. Price. Telephone calls would be completely free of charge among two IP phones ( and that believe me is a GREEEEAT THING when you try it)

2. The never enough considered satisfaction to be able to ref..ck who f..cked us for many years...

What would VoIP telephony need to be #1 spot in the curve?

1. A reliable PORTABLE Phone that doesn't need millions of Hot Spot's to work.

2. A reliable, cheap flat rate internet connection anywhere for everybody.

If ONE could put these patterns together, THEN VoIP would really have the chance to be #1.

See my website: http://www.worldonip.com or contact me patrizia@worldonip.com

Patrizia is an ebooks publisher. See also http://www.easymediabroadcast.com

Voip - Voice Over IP and Business: Is It For You?

 

 VoIP allows users to make phone calls using their high-speed Internet connection. This
translates into free, or very low cost long-distance calling. Because VoIP uses the power of
the Internet, traditional phone companies are left completely out of the loop. Of course, now
that the idea of VoIP is catching on more and more, traditional phone companies are developing
and offering their own VoIP options so as not to be left out. From the consumer's point of
view, this competition is keeping options open and pricing low. For businesses, this is
particularly good news, since many VoIP providers will want the business of business--this is a
huge market, which providers are aware, of, so the savvy businessperson will take advantage of
this, conduct thorough research, and seek out the best possible option to meet the company's
needs.

What are the Pros to Using VoIP?

Cost is a number one factor. If your business does a high volume of long distance calling, this
can be an extremely affordable way to go. Another positive is that the future of long distance
calling is VoIP. As time passes, more and more options will be available and the market will
become even more competitive. It is also easy to use, although a business set-up will be more
complicated than a home set-up.

What are the Cons?

One disadvantage that many users report is that there tends to be an "echo" when using VoIP.
How much of a disadvantage this is may depend on the user. There can also be a slight lag at
the beginning of the conversation.

Another potential disadvantage is that the technology is fairly new. As VoIP becomes standard,
improvements will take place. In the meantime, it is up to each business to determine if this
is a way to go.

Also, because VoIP operates through your Internet connection, should you lose Internet service
for whatever reason or power, you will not have phone access until the service or power is
restored.

Is VoIP Right for my Business?

As with any business decision, you should examine your needs and available services before
making a purchasing decision. VoIP may produce substantial savings, but it could also produce
substantial headaches. Whether or not your company can navigate potential glitches with minimal
interruption is something you need to determine. Many traditional service providers offer
competitive pricing, and the security of the existing structure may not be worth the potential
problems with VoIP. It is also necessary to price and compare the technical requirements; will
your existing structure support VoIP, or will the investment in technology offset the potential
savings?

VoIP Business Options

On the bright side, because VoIP is a growing service, many companies provide business
solutions and the offers and pricing are competitive. One thing to consider as you compare
options is contract terms. Because the technology is expanding, it is wise to avoid any long-
term contract, as a better option may come along in the meantime. A variety of companies offer
business solutions. The following list is just a few:

Sprint: http://www.sprint.com/business/products/categories/voip.jsp

Lingo: http://www.lingo.com/voip/business/unlimited_internet_phone_ service.jsp

Quest: http://www.qwest.com/largebusiness/products/voip/

Pipex: http://www.pipex.net/products/voip/

How to Get Set Up for VoIP The technology required will depend on the service you choose. There
are three types of VoIP methods.

ATA stands for analog telephone adaptor. It connects to your computer or Internet
connection and uses regular phone.

IP phones are special phones that look like traditional phones, but they connect with
an Ethernet connector.

Computer-to-computer is an easy way to use VoIP and long distance calls are free; you
only pay for the software. While this method can work in a business setting, it may not be the
best solution, even though it is very cost effective.

VoIP requires a high-speed Internet connection, and for business purposes, your set-up needs to
be able to handle the additional use that VoIP incurs. Essentially, there is no "one size fits
all" set-up guide for business VoIP options. The service you choose and your company's
individual requirements will determine what you will need.

Andrew Kelly is a Technology Consultant who helps keep businesses at the leading edge of technology.
For more great tips and resources on everything voIP visit:
http://www.voipvoiceoveripcenter.com
Andrew Kelly-- has been a leading Comminications & IT Consultant for 15 years, Andrew's current key roles are keeping Medical & Dental industries at the cutting edge of Technology and two steps ahead of the rest.