VoIP: What It Is And How It Works

We will explain what VoIP calls are and how they work, or the VoIP protocol used to make voice calls over the Internet. This is a different method from conventional calls, and it can help you save some money when communicating with other people.

But don’t be scared if you hear the word protocol because we will explain it without technical terms and in a way anyone can understand. We will start by explaining what VoIP is and its differences from the rest of the calls, and then we will tell you how it works.

What is VoIP

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, a method by which you can make voice calls over the Internet. The audio of what you are saying through the microphone is taken and converted into digital data. It is transmitted over the network to another device, where it is interpreted so that the voice can be heard again.

This means that it is an alternative to conventional phone calls. With VoIP, you do not depend on the signal from the antennas or the telephone cable but rather on the Internet coverage; you must be able to transmit the calls. This has a downside: if there is poor coverage, the call will also lose quality.

VoIP calls are usually independent of conventional telephone calls. This means you do not make them with the phone call button on your smartphone but through third-party applications with the option to make voice calls. Today, almost all apps allow you to do it.

The biggest advantage of these calls instead is that they are not subject to your telephone rate. It doesn’t matter if calling from your country to a distant one has a cost if you do it by landline or conventional mobile calls because VoIP calls have no cost unless you use an app that charges for this service.

VoIP refers to the protocols that facilitate these calls, although we popularly use the name to refer to them. These can be done through any connection, from home LANs to mobile data networks. Come on; you can call from your computer and your mobile or tablet, as long as you have an app that allows it.

As for the applications, as we have told you, practically all the main messaging services offer this option today, including WhatsApp, Telegram, Skype, or Messenger. You identify these calls in the apps because they have the same phone icon as the conventional calls application. However, when made through the mobile app, they are VoIP calls.

Also works for landline phones.

This Internet calling technology is very common, especially in mobile applications, but it can also be used on landlines. Several options are available for this purpose, and all of them cause the voice you send from the phone to be digitized and sent over the Internet.

As for the options, there are several, as we have told you. For example, you have VoIP routers, in which you connect a conventional landline telephone and can make calls over the Internet. ATA VoIP or analog telephone adapters connect to the router, and we can later connect several conventional telephones. It is a small device that connects to the router, and to this, in turn, we connect several conventional telephones to channel calls through the network.

Then you have the VoIP telephones, which are very similar to the landlines at home but that you can connect directly to your router or the option of contracting a VoIP rate with your operator to facilitate this process. When using calls with conventional phones, you usually need a provider on which the price will depend.

How VoIP calls work

VoIP calls need two elements to work. The first is access to an Internet connection on the device from which you will do it. And the second is to have an application that integrates the technology to carry them out. It is also necessary to have an audio input and output, such as a microphone to speak into it and a speaker to listen.

The only thing that happens is that each application usually applies these calls differently. This means that both people will have to use the same application since, for example, you cannot call from Telegram to WhatsApp; it would have to be from Telegram to Telegram. Some adapters are used to carry them out with conventional telephones.

Its operation is simple. You make the call to the contact you want through the application of your choice, and that application converts the audio from your microphone to digital signals. These are sent through the same application over the Internet until the other users receive the data and translate it back into sound, which this person hears on their speaker.

How the app treats this data differs greatly from the video conferences that can be carried out in many of these applications. Two channels are created within the call, one for the audio you send to that person and another for the audio they send to you.

And then, there are the technologies that connect conventional phones to the router. Whether through a special router, an adapter to connect phones to the router, or a VoIP phone, the idea is to channel the call and digitize it to convert your voice into data that can be sent.

The advantage of doing this with conventional phones is that you are not dependent on specific applications and can call phones worldwide. Of course, unlike the alternatives of Telegram, WhatsApp, and Company, with these, you usually have to pay a fee to the provider.