Talk Is Cheap: Switching to Internet Telephones

Fed up with the high tolls charged by your ordinary telephone service? If you're itching to cut the copper cord with your costly, traditional phone service, you need Talk is Cheap, the new, easy-to-understand guide to understanding and using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) and other Internet telephone options. Technologies such as VoIP are gaining a great deal of attention these days as more people switch from standard telephone service to phone service via the Internet. But while the cost savings are outstanding, there are some issues with Internet telephony that you should know about. Are the connections reliable? Is the quality comparable? Will it include 911 services? James Gaskin's Talk is Cheap addresses these issues and many more by explaining how to make the switch and what the tradeoffs will be if you opt for Internet telephony over traditional phone services. Talk is Cheap focuses on the increasingly popular services from Vonage, which uses VoIP, and Skype--a free service that operates as a peer-to-peer (P2P) network with the ability to turn any PC, Mac, or Pocket PC into a telephone. The book explains your options; explores the background behind, the workings of, and differences between VoIP and P2P networks; and discusses the advantages and drawbacks of both technologies (including service offerings, quality, capabilities, completion rates, and more). Talk is Cheap then goes into detail on what you can expect in Internet service from traditional phone companies such as Verizon and AT&T. In addition, you will learn more advanced techniques, including how to turn your Palm or Pocket PC into an Internet phone and how to work with Wi-Fi phones and videophones. A straightforward, quick introduction to the ins and outs of using Internet telephone services, this book provides everything you need to make informed telephone decisions--whether you're thinking about the switch from traditional phone service or have already made it and want to get the most out of your new Internet telephone.

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VoIP Technologies: A Comprehensive Guide to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)

Looking for a reference on Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP)? VoIP Technologies, your complete guide to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP), provides a comprehensive foundation of VoIP technology, as well as the knowledge necessary to successfully support any VoIP product.

Designed for those who have a working knowledge of data, this guide examines the major components of VoIP networks, the incorporation of VoIP into a data network, packaging and transmitting voice, maintaining voice quality, and addressing traffic issues. Many other topics are also discussed in this section, including VoIP standards, protocols, and configuring networks for VoIP. The second half of the guide focuses on designing and supporting complex VoIP solutions encountered in Wide and Local Area Networks (WAN and LAN).

This guide will also help to prepare you for the Technology Standards and Protocols for IP Telephony Solutions (920-803) and Technology Standards and Protocols for Converged Networks (920-804). Nortel Professional Certification exams.

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Switching to VoIP

More and more businesses today have their receive phone service through Internet instead of local phone company lines. Many businesses are also using their internal local and wide-area network infrastructure to replace legacy enterprise telephone networks. This migration to a single network carrying voice and data is called convergence, and it's revolutionizing the world of telecommunications by slashing costs and empowering users. The technology of families driving this convergence is called VoIP, or Voice over IP.

VoIP has advanced Internet-based telephony to a viable solution, piquing the interest of companies small and large. The primary reason for migrating to VoIP is cost, as it equalizes the costs of long distance calls, local calls, and e-mails to fractions of a penny per use. But the real enterprise turn-on is how VoIP empowers businesses to mold and customize telecom and datacom solutions using a single, cohesive networking platform. These business drivers are so compelling that legacy telephony is going the way of the dinosaur, yielding to Voice over IP as the dominant enterprise communications paradigm.

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