VoIP voice data is transmitted via a packet-switched data network using IP. VoIP systems can carry a significant higher number of calls, and very much faster, than traditional PSTN networks due to compression of the voice packets, modern broadband technology and a number of other gateway developments which have reduced the previous packet delivery problems to an extent that the protocol is now a viable mainstream telephony solution to most business needs.

VoIP security should therefore be shown to be at least as effective as that of traditional telephone systems.

There is actually very little difference between VoIP security and that required for any other type of data transmission system. Look on it the same as you do your email system. The same as your office LAN if you have one. You probably have a system in operation whereby only authorized personnel can use certain aspects of the network. VoIP security can, and do, use the same techniques.

However, having said that, let’s have a look at potential weak points in VoIP security that budding hackers may see as good points of attack.

IP PBX CALL MANAGEMENT BOXES

PBX stands for Private Branch Exchange, and is piece of software running on a server. It’s function is to deal with all the switches and connections involved in the telephone system. These can be attacked by hackers or viruses which could compromise sensitive data. VoIP security systems are designed with this risk in mind.

PBX equipment should be placed behind firewalls, locked down and regularly monitored for unwarranted intrusions using intrusion-detection software. It is also possible to put the server in a different domain from the rest of the system, making it much more difficult for intruders to reach. PBX security is a basic aspect of VoIP security systems

GATEWAYS AND DATA PACKETS

The gateway’s job is to convert voice to data packets, transmit them then receive and convert the packets back into voice. These are a potential VoIP security risk in that thy can be hacked into unless there is an access-control system in place to prevent unauthorized people from accessing the system. VoIP calls should only be permitted to specific people, and most good VoIP security systems allow only authorized user to operate VoIP systems under password control.

The data packets themselves can be hacked into using data-sniffing techniques. This can be a serious VoIP security risk and packet sniffers, as they are often called, capture binary data passing through your network and can reroute it to a computer on another network for decoding into a readable form. In order to do this, the ‘sniffers’ has to be on the same network wire as the packet is using to reach its destination. The problem in installing an effective VoIP security system is that there is usually a lot of information passing at any one time, and the hacker has a higher probability of getting useful information than from a conventional telephone system.

Encrypting VoIP traffic and routing it through a virtual private network would reduce the VoIP security risk, and most corporate systems have multiple encryption layers for external messages. Internal security could be improved by running internal VoIP messages through this corporate network. Small businesses should seek the advice of their supplier, or of a security expert if they feel that they may be subject to such attacks.

However, VoIP security advisors can point small to medium companies in the right direction. Corporate VoIP security is generally not so much problem in that it is normally contracted out to expert advisers.

In the final analysis, however, there are no real differences between VoIP security and the normal security concerns associated with any data network service, such as normal office internet and email LANs. The security firewalls and restricted access to use, common on these systems, should suffice to deal with VoIP security

Copyright 2006 Peter Nisbet

About The Author
Peter Nisbet is an industrial research chemist with almost a fixation with data transfer systems, starting with audio and video file formats and codecs, and here with telephonic transmission systems which allow what is commonly known as VoIP. His fascination with subject is obvious from his website: http://www.data-voip-solutions.com

They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again….expecting a different result. So here I am insane and armed with a pen she starts to spell it for me V-O-I-P. VoIP….. My mom wants to know if I have ever heard of it. I respond with a yes mom that is what I do. She responds with an OK I just wanted to make sure you knew about this new way of calling. They say it is really going to become popular. On that note I shifted the conversation.

Time passed and two weeks ago I called my mom and I got the where have you been? Working mom on a product for small businesses that already have an existing phone system and want to use VoIP. I proceeded with explaining how it will save companies a lot of money on their monthly phone bills and in some cases up to 70%. She responds with “Well Lisa, VoIP- now is what you are doing legal? I was stunned and amused so I responded with well mom I guess I will be find out soon enough if it is legal. It is not like I live a life of a criminal, but as far as my parents and their age group 60-80 if it is new and innovative……it is probably illegal or a scam.

Senior Citizens are the fastest growing population in America accessing the internet today. They also have the most discretionary income. The VoIP providers are really missing out on this market by not educating seniors about VoIP and the amount of savings they can save a month or annually on the phone service.

So as it stands now my mom thinks I am a thug, but the good news is she sent me a clipping from one of her magazines with a little note attached that read Google have you heard of them?

About The Author
Lisa Kaye has been in telecommunications for 12 years.She’s the V.P. of Marketing and Agent Development for http://www.telecomarena.com.

Copyright 2006 Dave Markel

VoIP is very cost effective as the monthly fee is lower than regular telephone networks. More than that, VoIP also integrate call forwarding and call display, options that are extra charged by the phone companies. Thus more and more people are attracted by this idea and tend to replace their phone lines with VoIP. Before taking such a decision it would be a good idea to keep some things in mind.

You might lose your old number once you switch to VoIP. This is not necessarily to happen, especially if the VoIP provider offers local phone numbers but it would be wiser to check this aspect with both your future VoIP provider and current phone company.

Due to its characteristics, a 911 call from a VoIP connection can’t be tracked down and thus the operator won’t be able to determine your location if you are unable to speak. Actually in order to make emergency calls you will have to register your address with your VoIP provider. Therefore it would be best to keep a standard connection in case you ever need to make an emergency call. This drawback could be solved in the future as the protocol undergoes constant development.

Apparently, these drawbacks are no reasons not to switch to VoIP as thousands of people decide to try the Internet miracle. The first step to making your first VoIP call is choosing the right provider for your needs. Most offer by default call display or call waiting and forwarding but the thing you really have to be careful is the fees providers charge for overseas and long-distance calls. Consider the people you use to call when choosing your provider.

VoIP providers also offer additional phone numbers most of the times. Therefore, you can choose to have numbers in different cities. The advantage of this option is that people living in those cities can call you for the cost of local calls.

Analogue Telephone Adapters or ATA are special devices that allow you to use your standard phone with the VoIP service. Although they can be acquired separately, most of the times ATAs are supplied by your VoIP providers. The basic equipment needed for VoIP calls is an IP phone, a broadband modem and a router. Computers can be bypassed although they make accessing the VoIP account easier while modems and routers can be incorporated into stand-alone units.

Connecting to a VoIP account is an easy thing. You just have to plug the IP phone into the router and the router into the modem. Also, service calls don’t require any preinstalled equipment.

About the Author

Dave Markel is the owner of a Voip Services Blog. Visit it at http://voip–services.blogspot.com

Today, many businesses are choosing to unplug and go with VoIP technology. There are many advantages for using VoIP including cost effectiveness, greater productivity, and the incorporation of data, audio, and video all intertwined in one program. Here is an overview of five reasons that your business should make the switch to VoIP.

VoIP Reduces Cost

Businesses today depend upon telecommunications. Whether it is Internet, E-mail, Customer Service through telephone, online web applications, and E-mail, or whatever your IT business needs may be, VoIP offers to handle all of your needs with one application. Additionally, this reduces cost and increases productivity. VoIP also has combined with software applications that are perfect for many business needs. Software such as accounting programs, Email, and PC based applications help to save money by combining services.

The reduction in long distance charges is another great advantage for switching to VoIP for business needs. By combining data, video, and audio needs, companies save on bandwidth usage, which ultimately leads to financial savings.

VoIP is perfect for Call Centers

VoIP is slowly becoming the standard choice for Call Centers. VoIP offers some major benefits for Call Centers such as flexibility, cost efficiency, and enhanced customer service applications. For instance, in the past, a Call Center needed to be a stabilized facility equipped with many phone lines used by people who would physically be located in the Call Center. By using VoIP for your Call Center, not only is your main location easily relocated as your business expands, but you can hire employees virtually world wide. Larger companies take advantage of VoIP Call Centers by outsourcing work overseas where they can hire employees for less.

The Integration of data, audio, and web based features is another reason why businesses are opting for VoIP. Customer service calls are handled more efficiently with the integration of these three components. Not only are calls transferred more proficiently, but also greater care can be given to customers when Call Centers use integrated software platforms.

More Call Centers are taking advantage of the opportunity to hire employees world wide through VoIP services. Employees may work in different time zones, giving greater customer service benefits year round, and hiring home based employees is another way businesses are choosing to save money.

VoIP is better for Mobile Employees

Many companies employ mobile workers. Mobile Employees have typically used cell phones at the company’s expense to stay in touch during the day. By utilizing VoIP Mobile Employees can remain virtually connected with the company, and the company saves money on fees.

When mobile employees rely on cell phones, many times a customer will call the main office, only to hear a message or be told the worker’s cell phone number. This requires the customer to hang up and call the employee on their cell phone- increasing the chance that the employee will lose the sale. By using VoIP, a call is instantly routed to the mobile employee and productivity increases.

Since VoIP integrates many other technologies, including E-mail, mobile employees are able to conduct many more transactions with one application.

VoIP allows Real Time Global Conferencing

Global conferencing and training can put a burden on a business. Attempts to reach employees worldwide are not only expensive but time consuming as well. With VoIP technology businesses can avoid conferencing costs, and enable secure audio and videoconferences to offices worldwide. By reducing long distance costs, employees are also taking advantage of calling each other and corporate headquarters more frequently.

VoIP offers Flexibility that Ultimately Increases Productivity

VoIP allows greater flexibility. By using a standard VoIP Phone Adapter, you are able to take your telephone number with you. This allows greater productivity by allowing employees to conduct business overseas, while traveling, staying in hotels, etc. Your customers will be able to call you on your regular business phone number, and you won’t have to use your cell phone.

Many VoIP services are fully integrated with PC applications such as fax and email. There is greater productivity when employees can integrate their email and phone services with one application. Conduct business with VoIP on your laptop, any time day or night.

With the option to get VoIP phone numbers with area codes throughout the country, and some world wide, businesses can expand by choosing local area codes for the city, state, or country they are targeting.

About the Author
Keith Wellman works full time earning an income from the internet by content sites in niche markets. For more info please visit VoIP Call Center

If you ask any answering service owner what the biggest challenge that they face today almost all would answer employees. For a number of years employers have tried a number of methods to find a desirable employees to work in what is sometimes less than desirable circumstances. Today technology has delivered these answering service owners a new alternative; the stay at home operator.

Thanks to VoIP services it is very easy for an answering service operator to log on and work off premise with the same advantages as an operator has in the war room of the call center. There are several advantages to such technology and call centers who have implemented these advances are seeing major changes. Some of these answering services virtually had to beg for employees and the pickings were slim. Now these same businesses actually have a waiting list for employees, with highly qualified candidates..

Another advantage to the stay at home operator is that it allows the answering service to be able to fill peak time periods and cover absenteeism more efficiently. The answering service now has alternatives when there are weather related emergencies as well as filling those difficult to handle shifts. There are offices that will staff overnight shifts with work at home operators..

Still other offices have been slow to embrace this type of technology while other offices reluctantly use this technology only for emergencies or supervisory tasks. There is a general misconception that these operators are more difficult to supervise and that the only way to run a call center is from a centralized location. With the advanced statistical reporting capabilities that most answering services possess, coupled with voice recording technology these employees are as easy to supervise as they would be in your office..

As the answering services that utilize at home operators continue to flourish, others are following their lead. At home operators now make up the fastest growing segment of employees in the answering service industry. In addition this new trend seems to be an alternative to overseas outsourcing. With the advantages offered to work at home operators, answering service owners and the industry as a whole, stay at home agents seem to be the trend of the future..

About the Author
Todd Cardin is the east coast marketing team leader for Specialty Answering Service. For more information about Specialty Answering Service, please visit our answering service / call center website and explore our services. This article may be reprinted and republished without permission as long as

Voice over Internet protocol (VOIP) phones have been commonplace in the workplace for several years now. As the technology begins to make its way to the average consumer’s home, it’s only fitting that some newer and more exciting technology begins to replace existing VOIP systems in business and industry. That is where wireless VOIP phones enter the picture. Capitalizing and building upon the efficiency, ease of use, and cost-effectiveness of standard VOIP technology, wireless VOIP technology has made its entrance in many types of businesses, giving employees everywhere more flexibility and communications options. And it looks like the technology is here to stay.

The use of wireless VOIP phones is an obvious and smart thing for retail businesses, schools, and even hospitals to consider using. No longer is there a need for an organization to have separate systems for work (computer-based) and voice communications (telephone-based). Business-related work and communications can be all-inclusive. Wireless VOIP phone systems give employees, especially those tied to a phone throughout their work day, the freedom to move about within their office building or complex, and still have the ability to communicate with customers and business associates. For businesses and other organizations that already have an IP communication system in place, it is the next logical step to move to wireless VOIP phones. They operate in the same way as standard VOIP phones, except that they function on a wireless local area network (WLAN). By staying in range of a wireless connection at the site, a user can make and receive calls just as they can with standard VOIP phone systems.

There are many specific types of organizations that can benefit from the use of wireless VOIP phones. Hospitals, for example, allow employees who spend a lot of their time on the telephone communicating with physicians, insurance companies, and with other hospital personnel within the building will see the huge benefit in being able to move freely within a workspace, carry out necessary communications, and accomplish more than one task at a given time. Retail stores also will see a huge advantage to using wireless VOIP phones, for much the same reason. The freedom to communicate with customers and business associates over the phone, while still being able to travel throughout the workplace has the potential to show an increase in work efficiency and time management. Schools can also benefit by using this technology. By providing staff, faculty, and security with wireless VOIP phones, student data is accessible over the phone, school emergencies can be handled much more quickly and efficiently, and teachers can communicate with one another whether in a classroom or in the cafeteria or on the playground.

The advantages of using this technology are apparent. Besides the freedom it provides, wireless VOIP phone systems allow organizations to combine communications to include phone communications, email, and text messaging, allowing them to work together in one system. This efficiency is a time saver, as well as a money saver. Speaking of saving money, organizations will find that they can avoid lengthy contracts with phone companies in favor of wiring systems that give the businesses more options.

There is a downside to this seemingly ideal technology. In a wireless VOIP phone system, the number of calls that can be placed by callers at a time is limited. An access point in a system can’t handle more than a few calls at a time. This limited capacity, therefore, has resulted in the inability for many types of businesses to use wireless VOIP phone technology. Businesses and industries that require huge volumes of communication on a constant basis would simply overload a wireless network. Despite this limitation, technology will no doubt catch up in the near future, and be able to provide wireless VOIP phone service to every level of business and industry, no matter how large.

Wireless VOIP phone systems are an exciting technology for the business world to embrace. Freedom, flexibility, efficiency, as well as potentially huge cost savings are but a few of the advantages this form of multi-level communication has the ability to provide its subscribers and users. Many organizations have currently incorporated wireless VOIP phones into their daily workplace with great success, including hospitals and schools. Wireless VOIP phones are a smart consideration to make in order to stay on the cusp of technology.
About the Author

Learn the essential information for picking the Voip provider / services at Wireless Voip Phones

I expect I’m part of the majority when saying my communication costs seem to have grown exponentially. Expenses for phone, fax, cell phone, high-speed internet, cable, satellite, etc., have all combined to seriously raise the bar on what I can get done, but at a correspondingly higher cost. Seems like I ought to be able to get rid of something! I could get rid of my phone bill (landline) by relying on my cell phone. A lot of folks do just that and it works great for them. However, some of us still need something like a landline - usually for business.

Another alternative I’ve been watching evolve, is Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP for short. This basically means using the Internet to talk on the phone. This has been around for a while now, but until recently, required one or both parties to be logged onto a computer. It was kind of novel, and having free long distance was a definite plus, but for day to day use, was obviously a pain.

However, VoIP is finally coming into the mainstream, offering serious competition to traditional carriers by providing VoIP using your regular hand-held phone. Keep in mind you need a broadband connection to utilize these services - either DSL or cable, but since I’ve already got cable, it’s a no-brainer. Savings over my last phone bill is $64 a month, which goes way past what I need to satisfy my Starbucks habit! Even better, is since I bundled high-speed internet service with my existing cable, I cut that cost by about $30 a month. Yes, life is good!

Several providers offer their broadband service starting at about $15 a month for their basic plan. That usually includes about 500 minutes of local and long distance calling throughout the U.S., Canada, and Puerto Rico, along with all the expected features like caller id, call waiting, call forwarding, yada, yada, yada. For unlimited calling, premium plans cost about $25 a month. Plus, most offer decent international rates, and no contract commitment.

There are several players to consider, including Vonage, Verizon VoiceWing and AT&T CallVantage. They all have similar plans in the same price range, some with additional features. Existing customers of specific providers can sometimes save more costs by combining other services. As you’ll observe when researching, most of the major players, are now starting to compete in this space, and they bring serious credentials, which will translate into stability and reliability going forward.

One of the biggest motivators for me, after price and reliability of course, is that all these providers disclose all the taxes and fees up front on their websites - try getting that out of “ma bell” - like pulling teeth. And, those taxes and fees are minimal - like a couple bucks compared to over $10 with the “other guys”. Do yourself a favor and take a look - you might save some bucks.
About the Author

John Allen writes on a wide variety of topics. Visit his blog at http://www.downsizedlife.blogspot.com to read more or obtain feeds. He can also be reached through his website http://www.j2trading.com which focuses on finding unique gifts.

This PC to Phone calling service is done in conjunction with MCI.

The functioning of wireless VoIP phones is similar to that of regular VoIP phones but Wireless VoIP phones combine VoIP technology and Wi-Fi (wLAN) systems. Users need to be in the range of the wireless node in order to make and receive calls. And when they are in the Wi-Fi’s reach, they are able to do a lot of the same calling functions enabled by regular desktop VoIP phones. When one is already equipped with a wireless local area network as well as VoIP phones, adding wireless VoIP phones can be a logical step.

Wireless VoIP phones are also known as VoWLAN or voice over wireless local network areas and Wi-Fi phones. The working of wireless VoIP phones involves a data network to which Wi-Fi equipment is connected. The network itself can either be independent, or connected to the Internet or the public phone system. The equipment enables high-speed wireless connection to unlimited access points.

Each access point has an antenna to catch the signal from the Wi-Fi equipment and broadcast it in a 300-foot radius or a hot spot. Within the radius all Wi-Fi enabled laptops, personal digital organizers and wireless phones can tune into the signal.

In wireless VoIP phones, the voice is converted into segments of data for transmission from the phone antenna to the Wi-Fi radio waves and then received by the data network. Here the data segments reverse the process to reach an extension or the traditional phone network. In other words, an extension can be carried around.

Although there is no argument about wireless VoIP phones being advantageous, they have their share of shortcomings as well. Fore one, they can not yet completely replace hard-wire VoIP phones mainly due to lack of reliability and the limited functions of wireless phones currently available in comparison to desktop phones.

However the biggest disadvantage in wireless VoIP phones is the limit on the number of simultaneous calls that can be made. The maximum number of calls in each wireless system cannot exceed five or ten. This seriously undermines its call handling capability in a large corporate environment.

Nevertheless, the dramatic reduction in operational costs has made it possible for wireless operators with high quality compressed VoIP to bring the ease and comfort of cordless calling to the VoIP world.
About the Author

Punks Johnston enjoys writing about wireless VoIP phones.

Originally based in Edison, New Jersey but now has moved to Holmdel, New Jersey, Vonage offers services to subscribers throughout the United States. The company expanded into Canada in April 2004 and into the United Kingdom in January 2005.

Vonage offers unlimited calling to the US, Canada and Puerto Rico for a flat monthly fee. Similarly, in the UK, calls to Ireland are included in the monthly fee.