VoIP FAQ
What is VoIP service that I’ve heard so much about? Is it available here? Will it allow me to make phone calls from my computer? Do I need High Speed Internet or other broadband connection to use it?
VoIP service refers to “Voice over Internet Protocol,” which in a general sense means using Internet technology (protocol) to transmit and deliver voice communications.
Rather than using the traditional “circuit-switched” (two-way) analog telephone network, VoIP “digitizes” the voice signal into information “packets” that are sent over the Internet or computer network, like data or e-mail. The packets are reassembled at the other end of the connection to produce the voice signal.
VoIP is one of the individual components of a larger, more wide-ranging concept of “IP-enabled services” that have developed as an offshoot of the Internet and its technology.
As most Americans are well aware, the growth of the Internet has generated intense interest and popularity in individual access to a boundless sea of web sites. In turn, the availability of broadband (high-speed) network facilities has fed the growth of additional web-based applications and services, including video. In addition to its data/web surfing applications, IP network technology also is able to transmit voice signals – by breaking them down into information packets just like data (e-mail).
Until recently, however, IP network-delivered voice service has been constrained by very poor quality and limited reliability. Recent advancements in IP technology have improved the quality of digitized voice service, and IP networks are becoming more and more capable of carrying voice communications on a par with the traditional network. In fact, VoIP services are increasingly being used to carry long-distance traffic, as well as to meet many business-related applications.
Currently, most VoIP service is what’s known as “peer-to-peer,” which means computer to computer; i.e., both parties must have the same type of IP software and both must be logged on at the same time. Also becoming more widely available are computer-to-phone and phone-to-phone VoIP applications. From a technical starting point, users must have a broadband connection (High Speed Internet, cable modem, or other) to take advantage of VoIP and other IP-enabled services, so policymakers hope that the benefits of “Internet voice” and other such services will increase American consumers’ acceptance of high-speed, broadband service – and its cost – and, thus, hasten broadband deployment across all segments of the economy, rural and urban.
Since VoIP is Internet-based, it has developed independent of the policy and regulatory realm that has governed the national telephone network. Similarly, the strong “Don’t tax the Internet” dictates of federal and state governments have also complicated the deployment of VoIP services to the general consumer market. And, there remain serious misgivings about the IP network’s current lack of E-911 capabilities and the inability of law enforcement officials to track and “tap” packet-based voice signals.
Without getting into all the details, Congress, the FCC, and state lawmakers are currently investigating how to promote the roll-out of VoIP and other IP-enabled services at the same time as they safeguard the universal service, emergency, law enforcement, consumer privacy, and other social policy objectives attained and promoted through the national switched telephone network for almost a century. To illustrate, the FCC has just begun a formal hearing on how it should continue to encourage new Internet-based technologies even as it preserves the value and sanctity of America’s national communications network.
