Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] Difference between VoIP tehnology and providers phone services

[Andreas Fromm <afromm physik uni-erlangen de>]

Eric De Vito wrote:

>Excuse-me first for my question, maybe it's stupid, but I am new in these
>technologies.
>So, what is the difference between VoIP phone technology and the phone services
>offered by internet providers which use internet to flow voice data ?
>Thank you
>
>Eric
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>
Hi,

I would say that nearly everything that transfers voice calls over the
Internet is related to VoIP. There are different technologies (i.e.
protocols) that can be used for this. There are standardized protocols,
like sip, h323 and closed protocols (skype), Depending on which software
or hardware you use, you will be using one of these technologies. The
Internet providers, at least here in Germany, offer there VoIP services
via sip. There are many softphones (programs that use your computers
sound card and Internet connection, like Ekiga) available that use sip
as there communication protocol. There are also hardware phones and
adapters for analog phones which can be plugged directly to your local
network (Ethernet), which use sip to make the calls.

As I mentioned before, there are other protocols to make VoIP calls.
H323 is used be MS-Netmeeting, MS-Messenger and the old GnomeMeeting.
Skype and, as far as I know, Yahoo and others use a private unpublished
protocol to communicate and can't communicate with other devices that
doesn't speak to them. There are many cheap "hardware phones" that say
that can speak to nearly any client using VoIP, but be careful, because
there are just USB-devices that need to have your computer to make the
calls.

Regards

Andreas