A Little Bit Of Insight Into VoIP Broadband Phone Technology

Phone services have known a real revolution, since the appearance of VoIP broadband phone technology. Because of its capability to use packet switching granted by Internet, VoIP is so much better than other phone services, that are based on circuit switching. One of these advantages is that phone calls can be made, using the same space, while other types of networks cannot allow more than one.

Here is how this works. Let’s say that you make your call from a circuit packet network and it takes 10 minutes, at a rate of 128kbps. What happens when you make your call with VoIP? You talk for 10 minutes, as well, but the transmission will consume resources for only three minutes and a half at a 64 kbps rate. This means that you can talk twice as much with VoIP, or receive other calls, in order to occupy the entire transmission space granted by the 128kbps rate. The technology that allows data compression is responsible for using such a great opportunities of making several phone calls using the same transmission space.

Let’s take a look to how packet switching technology works with VoIP:

1. When someone receives a call, in that moment, the signals are taken over by ATA. ATA, or Analog Telephone Adaptor, consists of a device whose role is to transform the analog signals into digital ones. With the help of this device, you can use your phone network along with your Internet connection. This way, you can use your VoIP to receive calls, even when the signals are analog and they are sent over the Internet.
2. The user will be noticed that a call is coming in over the Internet through dial tones.
3. Once the connection is established, the user can make the desired phone call, by dialing the number. All the analog data will be transformed into digital data and stocked for a determined period of time.
4. Then, this data will be checked for validity. In order for this to happen, the phone number will get to the call processor where the checking is being made.
5. Therefore, the VoIP company will be able to determine the details related to the people that are being called over the network. This job is performed by the call processor, that deals with a database or a soft switch containing such details, as network endpoints, as well as the number corresponding those endpoints and the IP addresses of the people that are called.
6. The database operated by the call processor is populated with phone numbers. There is not only one single soft switch that makes the search for the number you call. The request will travel from one soft switch to another until it reaches its destination. It will not only identify the number, but also the IP address associated with it.
7. This information will then be transmitted to the first phone from which the call was made. When we make a phone call using VoIP, what actually happens is connecting two endpoints of the network and exchange data between them. So, we make the call, the signal is transformed from analog to digital and then the phone rings. Soft switches are important because they allow for identification of the person that is being called and make the connection.
8. The actual connection starts when the other person, that is receiving the call, accepts it. Now, the system will start communicating with each other, by sending data packets, exactly in the same way that e-mails are sent over the Internet. There is only one prerequisite for this to work: in order to establish a connection, the two systems should be similar. The communication is done through two channels, one that is used for the direction and one that keeps the session.
9. During all this time when the systems communicate with one another, the conversion between ATA signals into digital signals is made continuously. The digital part is necessary only for the transmission, while the analog one permits the sounds to be heard over the Internet. Another device involved in the process is the telephone, which is an analog device. This is used for transmitting the packets towards the other system.
10. As with any other telephone connection, the transmission is finished, when one of the parties decides to hang up. Then the connection between systems is ended.
11. Once the conversation is finished, ATA will transmit to the soft switch a certain signal that finishes the session. This is how technology uses both computer and telephone communication systems in order to make VoIP possible.

It is believed that, due to the great advantages that it offers, VoIP will gain more and more popularity and it will not be long until the old telephone will be no longer our main system for communication.