History of VoIP

IP-Enabled Services

Internet Voice, also known as Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), is a technology that allows you to make telephone calls using a broadband Internet connection instead of a regular (or analog) phone line. Some services using VoIP may only allow you to call other people using the same service, but others may allow you to call anyone who has a telephone number - including local, long distance, mobile, and international numbers. Also, while some services only work over your computer or a special VoIP phone, other services allow you to use a traditional phone through an adaptor.

Voice over IP began as the result of work done by some hobbyists in Israel in 1995 when only PC-to-PC communication was available. Later in 1995, Vocaltec, Inc. released Internet Phone Software. This software was designed to run on a home PC (486/33 MHz) with sound cards, speakers, microphone, and modem. The software compressed the voice signal, translated it into voice packets, and shipped it out over the Internet. The technology worked as long as both the caller and the receiver had the same equipment and software. Although the sound quality was nowhere near that of conventional equipment at the time, this effort represented the first IP phone.

By 1998, VoIP had reached some potential. A number of entrepreneurs started setting up gateways to allow first PC-to-Phone and later Phone-to-Phone connections. Some of these entrepreneurs started by providing customers a facility to make free phone calls using the regular phone. Every phone call which the user made had an advertisement at the beginning and at the end of the call. This service was only available to users in North America. This service allowed the users to make free long distance calls. This “free to the customer” marketing model, was sponsored by various advertising companies or agencies. These services often required the services of a PC to originate the call, although the actual communication was from ‘phone to ‘phone. At this stage, VoIP traffic represented rather less than 1% of voice traffic.

In 1998, three IP switch manufacturers introduced equipment capable of switching. At present, most IP switching and routing equipment suppliers offer VoIP as either a standard or as an option on their mid-range and up equipment. VoIP traffic exceeded 3% of voice traffic by 2000, and is forecast to grow rapidly to between 25% and 40% of all international voice traffic by 2005. Today there are two standards for VoIP switching and gateways: SIP and H.323. The former primarily relates to end-user IP Telephony applications, whereas the latter is a new ITU standard for routing between the circuit-switched and packet-switched worlds used for termination of an IP originated call on the PSTN, but the converse is increasingly becoming common.

Voice is the latest core function making its way into the IP world. In the years since VoIP has been introduced, a growing list of technology providers have begun to offer PC telephony software. There is a spate of gateway manufacturers entering the market. Until recently, VoIP provided PC-to-PC telephony primarily over intranets typically found in a business environment. With the introduction of gateway infrastructure outfitted with VoIP technology, users can now look forward to the widespread increase in the usage of Internet telephony.


Information courtesy of www.intertangent.com