VoIP History

[mattpark]

Voice over IP owes its birth to the experimental work done by some hobbyists in Israel back in 1995 when only PC-to-PC communication was the option. In 1995, Vocaltec Inc. ushered in Voice over IP as an add-on to the home PC revoltion. Vocaltec Inc released INTERNET PHONE SOFTWARE, which could be suitably run on a home PC (486/33 MHz) with sound cards, speakers, microphone, and modem. The whole working logic here was that the software compressed the voice signal, converted it to voice packets, and sent it over large distances through the Internet. The sound quality did not match the efficiency of the conventional equipment in vogue, but it represents the first IP phone. This system operated as long as both ends of the line used the same software and equipment.

By 1998,VoIP had established a market presence and its cause was best served by small time entrepreneurs who first embarked on PC-to-phone and later setup gateways for phone-to-phone connections. The startups in North America offered customers a provision to make free calls over the regular phone wherein the profits were made by way of the advertisement slots that started and ended a typical call. Often these services needed a PC to originate the call eventhough, communication was on a phone-to-phone basis. Various advertising companies sponsored this FREE TO THE CUSTOMER theory and the customer base found it convenient as long distance calls became absolutely free. However, at this stage VOIP traffic amounted to less than 1% of voice traffic.

The next stage of VOIP acceptability needed innovations with regards to the equipment involved. Devices capable of switching were introduced in 1998 by three IP switch manufacturers. Today, many IP switching and routing equipment vendors offer VOIP as a standard option or an accessory on their mid-range and up equipment. There are two benchmarks for VOIP switching and gateways namely, SIP and H323.The former concerns the end-user IP Telephony applications; whereas the latter deals with new ITU standards for routing between the circuit-switched and packet-switched worlds used for termination of an IP originated call on the PSTN.Today, the converse to this is gaining a foothold as well. These changes have ensured that VOIP traffic exceeded 3% of voice traffic by 2000 and is expected to form anywhere between 25% and 40% of all international voice traffic by 2005.

Voice is the latest core function finding its place and justifying it in the IP world. VOIP has totally revolutionized the market as more and more technology providers have added PC telephony software to their list of services. The prominence of VOIP in a business setting courtesy the Intranet is being challenged with the introduction of gateway infrastructure offered by a horde of companies entering the market. Now, with gateway infrastructure outfitted with VOIP technology, customers can look forward to a boom in the field of Internet telephony.