Cut the Cord! The Consumer's Guide to VoIP
By jerri l. ledford
Comments
good guide
(2006-08-13)
If you have been contemplating VoIP but are fuzzy on the details, Ledford offers some insight. She walks you through a good general guide of what VoIP is, from a user's perspective, not an engineer's. You can see that VoIP offers a far richer feature set than Plain Old Telephone Service. Though the exact features in a given VoIP varies with its provider. At least for US readers, the book summarises who the main providers are and typically what each offers, and for how much.
Also, the book surveys VoIP equipment and which you might want to get.
Of course, Skype gets prominent mention, as the best known pure VoIP play.
Good Introduction to What's Coming
(2006-08-13)
The basic technology of the conventional telephone system has been around since the very beginning. You make a call and you get a dedicated communications channel to the instrument at the other end. And in the beginning that was indeed a physical wire. This wiring circuit was physically switched to your phone and stayed there until you hung up. Later Bell Labs was set up to discover how to get more signals through a wire than just one message at a time. Everyone knew that you could get more signal through a wire than just one phone call. And running all that wire was expensive, especially when it ran underwater across the Atlantic.
Step forward a few decades. The internet isn't circuit switched like this. Instead it's packet switched. A packet of data has it's own address as to where it's supposed to go and is thrown up on the network. It makes its way to the intended receiver. That's the way this message got to you. Suppose instead that that packet was a little tidbit of digitized voice. With the proper instrument on the receiving end (let's call it a telephone) the data is converted back into voice.
That's what VOIP is all about. To learn the details, buy this book. It's a complete description of what it's all about from equipment, procedures, and a bit of the background technology.
Only one last comment -- keep at least one regular, old fashioned, hard wired (not cordless) telephone around. If you have a fire, that knocks the power out, you want something that will let you call 911.
(2006-08-13)
If you have been contemplating VoIP but are fuzzy on the details, Ledford offers some insight. She walks you through a good general guide of what VoIP is, from a user's perspective, not an engineer's. You can see that VoIP offers a far richer feature set than Plain Old Telephone Service. Though the exact features in a given VoIP varies with its provider. At least for US readers, the book summarises who the main providers are and typically what each offers, and for how much.
Also, the book surveys VoIP equipment and which you might want to get.
Of course, Skype gets prominent mention, as the best known pure VoIP play.
Good Introduction to What's Coming
(2006-08-13)
The basic technology of the conventional telephone system has been around since the very beginning. You make a call and you get a dedicated communications channel to the instrument at the other end. And in the beginning that was indeed a physical wire. This wiring circuit was physically switched to your phone and stayed there until you hung up. Later Bell Labs was set up to discover how to get more signals through a wire than just one message at a time. Everyone knew that you could get more signal through a wire than just one phone call. And running all that wire was expensive, especially when it ran underwater across the Atlantic.
Step forward a few decades. The internet isn't circuit switched like this. Instead it's packet switched. A packet of data has it's own address as to where it's supposed to go and is thrown up on the network. It makes its way to the intended receiver. That's the way this message got to you. Suppose instead that that packet was a little tidbit of digitized voice. With the proper instrument on the receiving end (let's call it a telephone) the data is converted back into voice.
That's what VOIP is all about. To learn the details, buy this book. It's a complete description of what it's all about from equipment, procedures, and a bit of the background technology.
Only one last comment -- keep at least one regular, old fashioned, hard wired (not cordless) telephone around. If you have a fire, that knocks the power out, you want something that will let you call 911.