VoIP Telephone Adapters
VoIP telephone adapters make
sense for many. By using VoIP telephone adapters people
can plug in a conventional telephone into an Internet
connection at home, at work or while traveling. VoIP
telephone adapters are especially useful for business
travelers who need to make calls worldwide.
Most VoIP telephone adapters
are ATA (Analog Telephone Adapters) that connect standard
phones to computer networks. Many VoIP ATA telephone
adapters also act as gateways by converting voice into
digital data packets and sending the packets to a VoIP
server either directly or indirectly. VoIP telephone
adapters that connect directly to a cable or DSL connection
send traffic directly to a VoIP server. VoIP telephone
adapters that connect to a PC usually have some software
loaded on the PC, which will do the conversion and then
forward traffic to the VoIP server (indirect).
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VoIP
telephone adapters are typical less expensive
that VoIP phones, which is why many choose to
buy a simple adapter and use the hardware that
they already have in order to make calls. In fact,
a fax may but substituted for a telephone as well
since fax over internet is now also possible.
VoIP telephone adapters are also very portable.
Business travelers will especially like the portability
feature as they can simply plug 'n' play their
adapter into their PC, laptop or PDA through a
USB connection. Some software application or Softphone
application is usually needed.
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In a business setting, VoIP ATA
telephone adapters usually have multiple telephone jacks
and an RJ-45 connection to a 10/100BaseT Ethernet hub
or switch. This enables connection to a local area network
(LAN) or wireless local area network (WLAN). These types
of VoIP telephone adapters use protocols such as such
as H.323, SIP, MGCP or IAX and encodes and decodes the
voice signal using a voice codec such as ulaw, alaw,
gsm, ILBC to communicate directly with a VoIP server
without a need for a softphone.
Besides connecting a conventional
telephone to high-speed Internet or through a personal
PC, a third type of VoIP telephone adapter can connect
a conventional telephone through a dialup connection.
This type of connection can be useful in some countries
where broadband has not been fully rolled out. This
type of ATA adapter typically connects directly to a
VoIP server through the dialup connection so it does
not require a softphone in order to run.
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a VoIP telephone adapter with WiFi capabilities on a laptop
or PDA enables travelers to call anyone in the world from
such locations as cafes, hotels, airport terminals, college
campuses, municipal parks or anywhere there happens to
be a Wifi hotspot for a connection. Some cell phone companies
are even developing telephones that can roam between Wifi
hotspots and traditional cellular networks on the fly
for lower cost service. This will be one of the great
uses for VoIP in the future. For right now, though, VoIP
telephone adapters provide a cost-effective method for
many who wish to get VoIP-ing right now. |
