VoIP & Internet Telephony - Not the Same Thing

If you have a business with a private telephone system (known as a PBX), VoIP technology removes the need for separate phone and computer cabling. The voice calls and data traffic share the office computer network, which has a single architecture. VoIP therefore saves money on cabling and installation, and allows additional features such as hot-desking, plus is paves the way for video conferencing, Wi-Fi mobility and multi-media telephones, expensive now but no doubt will be affordable and the norm in the future.

This "Localized" VoIP has the advantage that businesses don't need separate voice and data cabling systems - the entire data and telecommunications systems can operate with one cabling infrastructure, and the telecoms can be managed and configured within IT policy, no longer being that black art.

Importantly, the office computer network is a hermetically sealed and secure zone, controlled and nurtured by those IT manager wizard guys who put in place network protocols to allow voice calls and data transfer to co-exist in harmony.

And then there's this internet thing, now a spotty teenager with a jumbled "free-for-all" attitude without management or control. And like most teenagers, the internet still has a few years before it calms down and sorts itself out, from the telephony point of view anyway.

With internet telephony, those quality-controlled voice calls must leave the relative safety of their local network and travel across the choppy sea of data known as the world-wide-web, hopefully arriving at another IP phone or system that will convert the data back to voice. And it can be a stormy trip. Many an important call has been sunk whilst crossing the internet.

Our young internet hasn't yet learned to prioritise voice over data, and whereas emails and files will happily dismantle themselves at leisure, with the bits finding their own way to a rendez-voux point at the other end, voice calls can't be interrupted or influenced by other traffic. This is why so many internet calls take two or more attempts to complete, or sound like they're underwater, especially when the kids get home from school and start using Facebook and YouTube.

The same applies for video communications, in fact any live media transmission doesn't stand much of a chance with the internet at the moment.

What about all these free calls? Yes, if the person you're calling is also connected to the internet with a VoIP phone or phone system. But that isn't the case for a lot of the time. Most people across the world are still hooked on mobiles, and many of the older generation use a normal landline (a what?) so your clever high-tech phone calls that have braved the internet find themselves back on the traditional telecoms network, often with extortionate call rates. So make your internet calls short, as they could be expensive before being cut off.

And here's another thought: businesses who decide to use the internet for their internal office-to-office calls need a high-end broadband connection at each end dedicated for the voice traffic, and these come with rental costs, and that's not exactly free either.

So what have we learned? VoIP is certainly the future for telecoms. So is the internet. But unlike telecoms, an old soldier that's been around the block more than a few times, the web still has some growing up to do.

Southern Communications were established in 1965 and offer a complete top-to-bottom business telecoms service for cheaper business calls & lines, phone systems, business mobiles, VoIP solutions and business broadband. We use Tier-1 carriers for phone calls with flexible contract options, no minimum call charges and per-second 3-digit billing for all calls.