History of VoIP

The history of VoIP began not to long ago in the year 1995 with a few hobbyists from Israel. As a result of their work they began routing voice data packets over the Internet instead of communicating through a plain old telephone service (POTS). This PC to PC communication made it possible to evade long distance charges.

Later in 1995 the first Internet telephone software was released by a company called Vocaltec Inc. The software ran on a PC and required a modem, microphone, speakers and sound card.

The early attempts in the history of VoIP entailed both callers to have a computer, the same software along with the necessary hardware. The purpose of the software was to compress the voice signal, convert it to voice data packets and lastly send it out over the internet. These early attempts of the first IP phone resulted in reduced sound quality and poor connection although it did show the technology was helpful and promising.

This is a good book at amazon.com that provides VoIP history. History of VoIP.

The history of VoIP evolved over the next several years and by 1998 there were several companies offering computer to phone service and shortly thereafter phone to phone service. For a phone to phone service it usually was necessary to use a PC to originate the call, even if the actual communication is from phone to phone. This service was offered to users only in North America. To subsidize the cost of early VoIP, service providers used advertising sponsorship rather than charging the user. An advertisement would often play at the beginning and end of the call. By the year 2000 VoIP traffic made up 3% of voice traffic.

As broadband service was gradually introduced VoIP call latency and clarity improved although static and problems making connections to the public telephone networks and the Internet continued to be a problem.

The advancement of VoIP technology really exploded once hardware producers like Nortel and Cicso began producing equipment that allowed switching. This function previously relied on the PC to switch a voice data packet into data that could be interpret by the PSTN (& vice versa). Now that another device could perform this task it made VoIP hardware less dependent on the PC.

As the cost of this hardware became less, large companies began building VoIP over their intra IP networks. Also long distant providers started to route some of their traffic over the internet.

From 2000 to date, the use of VoIP has increased rapidly. Currently there are two technical standards being used for VoIP data packet transfer and switching: H.323 and SIP. Each technology is being developed by one or more major manufacturers. No clear technology has yet to emerge as the universal standard.

Today companies are switching to VoIP mainly as a result of cost saving for long distance and capital costs. Residential use of VoIP is also rapidly becoming a preferred alternative due to the cost savings and long list of robust features.

Within a few years Voice over Internet Protocol technology has developed into a mainstream choice to regular phone service.