VoIP Calling explained

Today's bustling society requires that we learn the most recent forms of communication in order to stay in contact with our clients and friends. VoIP calling is the future's way of communication, which unifies the advantageous features of a PSTN calling and the opportunities that the Internet gives us. If you are interested in these opportunities, then read on.

Data transmission among computers is directed by certain sets of rules, called protocols. Data is sent in data packets, into which they are compressed. These packets need to be addressed according to certain rules if we want to send them to the desired destination (Figure 1).

IP, or Internet Protocol is a set of rules that control data packet transmissions via the Internet. This protocol gives a unique IP address to every computer in the network.

voip calling explained
Figure 1 - VoIP Calling explained

VoIP or Voice over Internet Protocol (which controls multimedia transmissions over the Internet) lets us make calls to a phone or another PC via the Internet. Figure 1 shows how these calls are made.

A VoIP phone digitalises voice signals into codecs before it sends them to a Private Branch eXchange (PBX handles telephone calls of the local network) after it cut the packets into codecs. The PBX sends them to the desired VoIP phone, or a Mobile device or an analog phone within the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN is the well-known, outworn communication we mainly used in the 20th century). Then they are put back together and converted back.

This process can be performed by VoIP phones themselves, or traditional phones with an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapters convert analog and digital data for VoIP communication).

You can make cheap internet calls on your PC (personal computer), or mobile device. If you want to make PC to Phone calls, you will need to download an Internet program or use a softphone. The available Internet programs offer calls at a cheap price, some of them even offer options for free calls.

Such programs are:

  • Google Voice: free in the US or Canada for three hours, and there is no limitation on the number of calls.
  • iCall: free in the US or Canada for five minutes (with a commercial at the beginning of each call), and there is no limitation on the number of calls.
  • Eva Phone: free everywhere for one minute at most, and the number of calls are limited to twice a day.

Free PC to PC Call:

  • Skype
  • Yahoo! Messenger
  • Windows Live Messenger

Ozeki Phone System is the best opportunity in VoIP calling, since it is the most powerful and developed technology available today. It does not only offer easy-to-use user interface, but also high-quality communication and flexibility.

The information given in this article is far from enough if you want to know everything about VoIP communication, so read the following articles to know more about it.


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