The development of very fast, inexpensive microprocessors and special-purpose switching chips, coupled with highly reliable fibre-optic transmission systems, has made it possible to build economical, ubiquitous, high speed packet-based data networks. Similarly, the development of very fast, inexpensive digital signal processors (DSPs) has made it practical to digitize and compress voice and fax signals into data packets. The natural evolution of these two developments is to combine digitized voice and fax packets with packet data, creating integrated data-voice networks. The voice-over-Internet protocol (VoIP) technology allows voice information to pass over IP data networks. Primarily, the cost savings that accrue from operating a single, shared network have motivated this convergence of telecommunications and data communications. VoIP allows you to make telephone calls using a computer network, over a data network like the Internet. VoIP converts the voice signal from your telephone into a digital signal that travels over the Internet then converts it back at the other end so you can speak to anyone with a regular phone number.


The VoIP networks replace the traditional public-switched telephone networks (PSTNs), as these can perform the same functions as the PSTN networks. The functions performed include signaling, databasing, call connect and disconnect, and codingdecoding.

Signaling: Signaling in a VoIP network is accomplished by the exchange of datagram messages between the components. The format of these messages is covered by the standard datalink layer protocols.

Database services: Database services are a way to locate an endpoint and translate the addressing that two networks use; for example, the PSTN uses phone numbers to identify endpoints, while a VoIP network could use an IP address and port numbers to identify an endpoint. A call control database contains these mappings and translations.

Call connect and disconnect (bearer control): The connection of a call is made by two endpoints opening communication sessions between each other. In the PSTN,the public (or private) switch connects logical channels through the network to complete the calls. In a VoIP implementation, a multimedia stream (audio, video, or both) is transported in real time. The connection path is the bearer channel and represents the voice or video content being delivered. When communication is complete, the IP sessions are released and, optionally, network resources are freed.

CODEC operations: Voice communication is analogue, while data networking is digital. Analogue waveforms are converted into digital information by using a coder-decoder (CODEC).

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