VoIP; switch now or wait?
By blog on Jun. 7, 2009.
I currently run my home phone through my cable modem, and it works pretty well, in most cases. There is of course the issue that if we have a power blackout, we have no home phone, so it can’t be relied upon in emergencies. That’s something that the company makes you acknowledge before installing the line.
I recently saw this article about the conversion to VoIP phones being around 50% in the next ten years, which made me take into account what I have just mentioned, and the fact that call rates are vastly cheaper, all culminating in my consideration of swapping over now to a VoIP phone.
When considering swapping over to a VoIP phone system, one does have to take into account the fact that as this system runs through your modem, it cannot be relied upon in emergencies; but I understand that and have a mobile phone around at all times. There is also the issue of latency and jitter, which is essentially time delay due to distance that your data has to travel to reach the person you are talking to, and the sort of bouncing, frame skipping effect that can illicit. This is being combated though, through various data transfer coding techniques. It seems to me that the challenges being presented by this new type of communication are quickly being dealt with. I think the name puts people off, too. It sounds very complicated, but really it isn’t. Voice over Internet Protocol is too much of a mouthful, so VoIP works for me!
I also ponder the price issue. This service is much cheaper than your average home phone, but along with that reduction in cost is the reduction in quality of service assurances. But honestly, VoIP is very close to what I am currently using, except VoIP would probably get me better connections and would definitely cost me less… I think I just made up my mind!
Category: Technology