Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Broadband : An Introduction to Broadband Phones

By Ray Lam

Broadband phones are becoming more mainstream. There are articles whether broadband phone service reached a tipping point or not. What is clear, though, is that phone service delivered over the public internet is the future of telecommunications.

Broadband phones make international calls more economical. Using the voice in data mode through the Internet allows anyone with the proper Internet bandwidth and the infrastructure to make international calls more affordably than they could with traditional phone companies.

All of this happens in a fraction of a second but many issues can arise to degrade the broadband phone service quality. A slow connection, bad phone, over-utilized bandwidth and a bad service provider can all degrade the quality of the phone call.

Nowadays, instant messaging Internet applications have voice messaging capabilities. Although consumers need a computer to make calls with this method, voice messaging uses the same technology. In fact some providers want to make the experience as traditional as possible--so traditional that phones can be connected to the computer. By using this technology, consumers can simply use their existing broadband connection to make free Internet phone calls.

There are usually significant cost savings by using broadband phone service that can alleviate the negative effects of service quality. For the general consumer this might be an acceptable trade-off. But a commercial enterprise might not want to accept this risk.

So why is broadband phone service so cheap? Would it surprise you to know you're traditional telephone company has been ripping you off for years? OK, so no big surprise there, but I'll give you the low down anyway. Turns out broadband phone, and traditional phone services use the exact same grid for transferring phone calls. The Internet. The difference is your traditional phone company has been charging you to send your calls to that grid, where with broadband phone service your DTA, or broadband phone adapter handles that for you and doesn't charge you a dime. You're truly just paying for the service.

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