Technology Networking & Internet

What Is Wireless VoIP?

By Technology Last updated Sunday, May/26/2024

History

The start in the VoIP race was given in 1995 by a company named VocalTec, when it offered the first Internet phone software, called Internet Phone. However, the reduced speeds for the Internet connectivity at that time lead to very poor sound quality and program performance, but still that represented an important milestone. The increasing speeds of Internet access across the next few years caught the attention of networking manufacturers such as Cisco and Lucent, who saw great opportunities in the VoIP technology, and started developing VoIP hardware. VoIP and wireless VoIP became very popular and continually evolved to deliver better performance.

VoIP is a system that uses the Internet to create an IP-to-IP connection for voice communication. Wireless VoIP is a system that takes advantage of Wi-Fi technology to deliver VoIP services over wireless networks.

To take advantage of VoIP technologies, there are some software and hardware requirements. Wireless VoIP can take advantage of specially designed wireless VoIP phones, giving the look and feel of classic cell phones but coming out with lower usage rates. Also, VoIP is also available through some of the most common instant messaging clients like Yahoo Messenger or Skype, having the main advantage of being free.

VoIP and Wireless VoIP technologies have multiple advantages. Besides all the common features of classic phones, such as call waiting, call forwarding and caller ID, they also integrate email capabilities, instant messaging or even video calls. Also, in most cases PC-to-PC or phone-to-PC calls are free.

The Wireless VoIP technology has the disadvantage that can only function within the range of a wireless network. Also, sound quality is not as high as of regular phones.

Wireless VoIP is mostly used in business companies as an efficient and cost-friendly communication method. Home users also use VoIP technology along with instant messaging. It is believed that wireless VoIP will become a serious competitor or even replacement for cell phones along with the continuous development of wireless networks, so wireless VoIP may become an everyday necessity for communication purposes.