Can you answer xxxtacular_com’s question about VoIP?:

People usually use a landline phone to dial AOL or other dial-up ISPs. I was wondering if you could just as easily use a VOIP phone connected through a high-speed connection to dial AOL numbers and establish a dial-up connection, if it would work?

And yeah, before you tell me why do you need dial-up if you have broadband, read the question again, that’s not what I asked.

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Can you answer remotecontrol’s question about VoIP?:

I understand that Yahoo Voice uses the SIP protocol. I would like to use my SIP phone for this service, but I cannot find the Yahoo Voice phone out server settings anywhere.

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Can you answer xtremecatholic’s question about VoIP?:

I already know that verizon doesn’t offer it. But what companies offer high-quality VoIP phone service?

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If you are one of the many iPhone users out there then you have likely been anxiously awaiting a readily available and easy to use iPhone SIP client. In fact, until recently, one of the big knocks on iPhone has been the relatively hard to find user friendly iPhone SIP applications. This scarcity has been due in large part due to Apple’s decision not to support voice over the Internet. Luckily, things are changing and iPhone SIP is becoming much more widely available.

So what’s the big deal and why do people want an iPhone SIP client anyway? SIP, or Session Initiation Protocol, is a multimedia conferencing protocol that allows you to make telephone calls over the Internet. It does a whole lot more than that but telephony is the big draw. iPhone SIP enables users to make telephone calls via wireless networks, as opposed to using valuable and costly telephone minutes. In other words, SIP allows you to make calls to virtually anywhere in the world without using talk time.

Until recently, there were few iPhone SIP applications that would enable you to take advantage of VoIP technology. In recent months, however, there have been a number of announcements made by large SIP vendors such as Skype introducing SIP tools that make VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) an real option for current iPhone users. This is what many iPhone proponents have been waiting for since up to now iPhone SIP was really just another item on the list of wanted apps.

So why has iPhone SIP been so long in coming? The answer to that question is easy. iPhone SIP has been slow in developing due to Apple’s restrictions on how it can work. Apple has limited SIP to use on wireless networks (wi-fi), as opposed to through cellular providers. This means that SIP clients such as Skype will only work if you are in the range of a wi-fi network. This limitation was put in place so that iPhone VoIP calling would not cannibalize AT&T’s revenue from regular wireless calls. No doubt AT&T’s concern about this issue was greatly justified but the limitation has brought a lot of frustration to iPHone users who have anxiously awaited high quality and reliable iPhone SIP client applications.

Apples block on iPhone SIP VoIP clients that work over a cellular data connection continue but iPhone SIP advocates can take heart now as there are even and iPhone SIP clients available in the official iPhone app store. Apple has finally opened its arms, if not its network, to developers who are working to catch up with development of SIP clients. There are now, at last, a number of SIP applications to choose from and users, while perhaps not having the all encompassing open access they had hoped for, do have good access to SIP technology now.

As competition between iPhone SIP apps has grown, so too has the ease of use. The iPhone SIP clients that are available today are far more user friendly than earlier derivations. This is great news for users and should be a leading indicator that there will continue to be improvement in iPhone SIP apps. It is likely that these advancements will continue and the iPhone SIP market will only get better for users. So, good news for all you iPhone users out there–SIP is finally here.



Thanks to Andrew Jones for contributing this article to our VoIP blog:

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Many businesses are now migrating towards VoIP networks because they recognize the significant value that a VoIP phone service offers. However, different businesses measure the value offered in different terms. Some see it in the cost savings and the advantages that a converged network has to offer. For others, the true value lies not just in cheap VoIP but more in the way it changes business productivity.

Any company that is planning on integrating VoIP phone service must first clearly understand the true value it offers, over the long run before making business critical decisions.

Cost Savings with Cheap VoIP

The most well known reason for adopting VoIP networks has been the potential to save costs both in long-distance and international calls as well as in certain regulatory costs and most certainly in toll costs. However, a firm has to carry out a more comprehensive analysis to see whether these cost savings can be realized in reality, especially for small and medium businesses. The reason being that in order to achieve true cost savings, certain economies of scale have to be in place. Also, the VoIP phone service provider must be able to provide the kind of technical set-up that makes it possible to have least-cost routing. Many large enterprises operate full-fledged call centers and may have the kind of economies of scale to feel the reduction in costs that a cheap VoIP may bring about. Even here though, the call volumes have to be fairly large to truly feel the effect of cost saving from cheap VoIP. Many therefore believe that cost savings is just a secondary advantage of the VoIP phone service while its true value lies elsewhere.

Unified Communications with VoIP

One of the main areas where a VoIP phone service helps tremendously is in management of employees. It is very easy to add a new employee to the system by just giving them handsets that connect to the IP stack either through a port or a Wi-Fi network. This can easily be carried out by an in-house staff member and does not require a specially trained third-party to step in. If the employee is moved, all he has to do is to move the handset to the new location and connect it to the network and the same number is up and running.

In VoIP networks, there is a general simplification in infrastructure, with converged networks carrying both voice and data. This allows a single, smaller set of trained personnel to take care of the networks.

The unified communications feature that a VOIP phone service offers forms a huge part of the value that it offers. It is possible to integrate voice with other business communications, delivering voicemail and faxes to an employee inbox.

Selecting or unselecting of features becomes very simple with a VoIP network. For example, it is very easy to set up call forwarding to cellphones or add voice recording in a VoIP system.

Other than cheap VoIP reliability of service as well as voice quality are areas of concern for large enterprises as well as small and medium businesses.

Thus each organization has to carefully understand the real benefits of a VoIP phone service and then prepare the business to derive the real value from a VoIP implementation.

Resource Box: The real value of a Business VoIP Solution is the cost savings. However there are many other benefits of a Business VoIP System that may not be so obvious but are none the less just as valuable as saving money.



Thanks to Amelie Mag for contributing this article to our VoIP blog:

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