VoIP, or voice over Internet protocol, allows you to send voice communications over the Internet and avoid the toll charges that you would normally receive from your long distance carrier.

When you send information across the Net, an e-mail for instance, it costs the same if you send it to your next door neighbor or your friend across the country, but the cost of making a phone call next door or across the country is different. If you could send voice as if it were data, then it wouldn’t matter who you were talking to. VoIP packages phone conversations in the same way that data (an e-mail or a download for example) is packaged and then sends it across the same line.

Sounds simple, why isn’t everyone using VoIP?

Although the concept of VoIP is easily understood, the implementation and use of it is more complicated. In order to send voice, the information has to be separated into packets just like data. Packets are chunks of information broken up into the most efficient size for routing (for more information see IP left).

From there, the packets need to be sent and put back together in an efficient manner. This process is smooth in theory, but voice communications over the Net are not as seamless as they are over a traditional phone lines. While the technologies are improving, there are still concerns about the quality of voice communications over the Net.

VoIP isn’t the only way to send conversations over a network like the Internet. VoIP is one of a group of technologies called voice over packet networks. Other network protocols like asynchronous transfer mode (see ATM left) can perform similar functions.

Should I be using these technologies at my office?

Analysts expect to see most offices using packet networks to send voice communications in the future. Originally VoIP and other voice over packet networks were expected to transform telecommunications. However, lack of high quality services and infrastructure costs have inhibited the success of these technologies.

Some companies are already starting to implement or test packet networks for voice communications. The Gartner Group predicts that by 2004 no more than 50 of the 1,000 largest public companies will send voice and data transmission over the networks (local area networks or LANs) at their corporate headquarters and largest offices. But it also predicts that by the same year more than 20 percent of enterprise voice traffic will be “packetized.”

The Gartner Group notes that the cost savings of switching from traditional phone lines to VoIP or similar technologies is often exaggerated because the added stress that the communications will put on the existing data lines isn’t taken into account.

Who offers these services?
At first, only a few companies like Cisco and Lucent offered VoIP services, but the large telecommunications carriers – such as AT&T and Sprint -- are catching on.

VoIP is predominately used for personal instead of enterprise-wide use, but like everything else, as the technology changes so will the people who use it.