All You Need to Know About VoIP – The New Age of Telephony
By Manhattan Tech Support
The traditional landline telephone system is being quickly replaced by Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephony. But what exactly is VoIP, and what can it do for your business?
VoIP is a technology that sends telephone calls over the same Internet connection your business uses to send email and web traffic. In recent years, VoIP has been experiencing explosive growth.
Analysts predict there were 1 billion VoIP users in 2018.[i]
The total size of the VoIP market will reach $99 billion in 2025.[ii]
VoIP, the “New Technology” With a 30 Year History
VoIP has not been in widespread use for very long. However, it’s been steadily growing in popularity since it was first commercialized in the early 90s. Here’s a brief summary of how VoIP came to be a viable alternative to the traditional telephone.
- 1991: John Walker and Brian Wiles write a compression scheme that reduces the bandwidth needed to transmit voice data from 64 Kb/s to 32 Kb/s. They release the program to the public domain under the name NetFone.
- 1995: VocalTec patents a VoIP transceiver, the first company to market a commercial VoIP product.
- 1998: Windows 98 provides a stronger foundation for VoIP service, allowing for easy conversion between digital and analog signals. This allows VoIP calls to travel across Public Switched Telephone Networks (PSTNs). Still, VoIP calls account for less than 1% of all voice calls.
- 2003: Niklas Zennstrom and Janus Friis found Skyper, later shortened to Skype. The service charges for calls to the PTSN and is the first commercial VoIP service to popularize video calling.
- 2004: Vonage appears on shelves in Circuit City, and soon has 2 million users.
- 2005: Calypso Wireless markets the first mobile phone with WIFI connectivity, allowing VoIP calling and real-time video conferencing.
- 2012: Hosted VoIP services grow 17% over the year before, and Session Internet Protocol (SIP) trunking, a protocol for provisioning VoIP services, makes massive inroads, growing 83%