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VoIP Internet Phone
Vocaltec, Inc. introduced its Internet Phone software in February 1995, thus voice communication over the Internet became a reality. The Internet phone software was designed to run on a 486/33 MHz or higher PC equipped with a sound card, speakers, microphone and modem. The software compresses the voice signal and translates it into IP packets for transmission.
When the concept Internet phone was introduced, people were able to make a free Internet phone call. Later, a small per minute charge was introduced and an Internet phone call was not free anymore. But the VoIP technology offers significant savings in phone bill costs.
There are two types of VoIP internet phone services - one allows making calls from the PC to a landline or mobile phone, the other allows making calls from one computer to another. The transmission technology used by most Internet phone providers is the same, choosing an Internet phone service provider would then depend on factors like user-friendliness and price. Making an Internet phone call from one PC to another is absolutely free. But if you are making calls with a phone and adaptor or special VoIP internet phone, your broadband Internet connection needs to be active.
The two VoIP protocols are Session Initiation Protocol (SIP) and H.323 protocol. SIP is designed for voice transmissions and H.323 is used for data transmission, videoconferencing and other applications. Though SIP is superior for VoIP applications, H.323 is deployed on a larger scale.
If the PBX is not VoIP enabled, an IP gateway can be connected between the PBX and the intranet. Now, calls will be routed through the data line, avoiding long-distance carriers. VoIP is most beneficial for businesses with extensive overseas contacts or a high volume of calls. Using VoIP over internal data lines is more predictable, because during periods of high network congestion, digital packets are dropped often, since the bandwidth is limited. This accounts for poor quality of the call and lost connections. The downside is that if the network is down, you can't make calls.
Internet Answering Machine
With an Internet answering machine, we cannot miss important calls while online. Callers can leave a message on the answering machine after the brief greeting. Some free Internet answering machine services display a message when there is an incoming call. Once the answering machine on the Internet is activated, callers don't get busy signals when the user is online. The Internet answering machine allows users to playback, repeat and delete voice messages. The free answering machine enables you to hear who's calling you while you are surfing. There is no need to install a separate telephone line for incoming calls and Internet access. The Internet answering machine occupies a small window on the user's computer screen while online. The Internet answering machine can display incoming calls, play messages and save them for later. Most Internet answering machine services work with the phone line's busy call forwarding feature to answer calls when the user is online. The user can choose to log off and take the call or save the message for replay later.
Internet Fax
Internet fax and Internet telephony two fundamentally different technologies. Sending a fax is more like sending an email than speaking over the phone.
Why is Internet fax used? Internet fax is used to:
- Send documents directly from a computer to a fax machine
- Receive faxes in email inbox
- Reduce telecommunications expenses when faxing docs to international destinations
- Send faxes between remote offices that are already linked by an IP based WAN
Some advantages of using an Internet fax service:
- Can save on fax transmission cost
- Enhances productivity and efficiency. For example, there is no need to print the document before faxing it, and we can send the same fax to multiple recipients without hassles
- Also reduce the number of phone lines and the number of computer equipment in the office
There are many companies that provide free Internet fax services. These Internet fax services started out as Internet research projects, a consortium of companies where each company maintains a fax server and delivers faxes from the Internet to the fax machines in the local area network. Free Internet fax services do not provide the support or service as a commercial fax provider. Only text messages can be sent through free Internet fax services.
Some commercial Internet desktop fax services provide a special printer driver to print the document to a remote fax machine.
Some of the features of commercial fax services are:
- Send formatted documents directly or by mail
- Send a single fax to many recipients
The service provider confirms the success or failure of the fax by email. There are many new services that allow fax to e-mail services available to businesses of all sizes. Earlier fax to email services was available only to large organizations. In large organizations, the fax server was integrated with the messaging system.
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