Not too long ago if you had said “VoIP” to the average Joe on the street, he probably would have thought you were talking about a new European sports car or some obscure brand of Russian Vodka. But these days, everybody knows what Voice over Internet Protocol is. The good folks at Vonage spent a large amount of their marketing budget on TV and print advertising, to make sure that the masses were made familiar with the term. And while they are currently having some legal problems of their own, nevertheless the word has been spread.

Internet Telephony or IP Voice services are mainstream today, being used in homes and offices nationwide. It’s not the quirky computer to computer communications process it used to be. No more (or very few anyway) Geek-to-Geek communications by computer nerds sitting at their terminals with headsets and microphones, the technology has come a long way since those days and the quality of service has gone up immeasurably. And, with the advent of the ATA or Analog Telephone Adapter, you can turn any telephone, even your old kitchen handset, into a VoIP phone. Want multiple extensions? That’s easy, just buy a cordless phone with extra handsets at your local retail store, and connect the base to your adapter. Now you are connected with as many phones as you want throughout the entire house. And with residential VoIP service, features like voicemail, call forwarding and caller ID are usually included with the monthly price you pay.

In the workplace there are even more options, and the technology can be a bit more complicated, but it still boils down to converting voice into digital packets that are sent over an IP based network. There are several ways to do this for the commercial segment; it can be as simple as replacing your telephone company’s trunk lines with an intelligent T1 that works with your existing PBX but adds VoIP functionality. In this case the office phone's features are determined by the company's PBX, however, rates do go down since the phone company's exchange is bypassed. There are also IP PBX options for companies, typically with 20 or more seats or distinct DID's. In this case the corporate PBX and telephone system is ripped out and replaced by a server based IP PBX (usually running on some type of Open Source platform, i.e. Asterisk) and IP Telephones are installed with much greater functionality. A similar set up, but without the ownership of the hardware, is possible with a Hosted Service provider. Many Small and Medium Sized Businesses (SMB's) are converting fully to IP via Hosted services. In this scenario no on-site PBX needs to be purchased or maintained. Voice and Data networks are converged as voice becomes a service offered, along with the IP phones running on it, via an outsourced network provider.

So What Does VoIP look like? The answer is, it looks like any other telephone you have ever seen. Whether it is your home phone or your office desktop extension, the conversations continue. When configured correctly, the technology behind the call, is totally transparent to the caller. The user should not need to know about SIP, NAT, PoE, Jitter or Latency, let the system or service provider deal with the acronyms and techno-babble, while you just pick up and dial. Obviously the proper network configuration is necessary so that ample bandwidth is available to support enough simultaneous conversations. But if you do your homework, and hook up with the right provider, you'll be amazed at the results. With the large list of functions and enhanced functionality that VoIP offers, like find-me-follow-me plans and disaster recovery capabilities, business productivity should soar.

NBS is a telecom service provider and reseller that has been offering voice and data services for over two decades. They offer, in their NBS V.o.I.C.E. suite of VoIP products, affordable residential service as well as the trunk replacement and hosted/IP PBX versions of corporate VoIP that are feature rich and offer savings and flexibility never dreamed of with traditional phone systems.