You must have heard about VoIP and VoIP gateways. But do you know what these technologies actually are all about?

To understand what a VoIP gateway is, you first need to understand what VoIP technology is all about. VoIP is the term used for Voice over Internet Protocol . It refers to the technology which facilitates transmission of voice traffic over internet networks. Internet protocol was originally developed for sharing data. After its immense success, the technology was adapted for sharing voice networking.

More and more business organizations have started to use VoIP instead of the traditional PSTN for communicating because it is cheaper and more useful than the other mediums of voice communications. Some of the benefits of using VoIP technology and VoIP phones include:

VoIP facilitates to transmit more than one phone call on a single broadband phone line. Therefore, more telephone lines can be installed by the business at a lower cost.

Like business phone systems, VoIP phones too, have many advanced features such as call forwarding, caller ID, call waiting etc. For these features, the businesses do not have to pay any extra charges.

VoIP offers unified and secured communications, which can be integrated with other internet based services such as video conferencing, web conferencing etc for enhancing the business communication.

Now let us discuss what is a VoIP gateway. Gateways are devices which convert telephony traffic into internet protocol so that data can be transferred over a network. These are generally used in the following two ways:

1- For converting PSTN to VoIP.  A VoIP gateway facilitates receiving and placing VoIP calls on a regular telephone network. With the VoIP technology, businesses can make larger volumes of calls at much lower prices.

2- To connect traditional PBX and other business phone systems to an IP network. A VoIP gateway allows making a call using VoIP technology instead of a regular telephone line. Business can either buy these services from a reputed and reliable VoIP service provider or can route the calls through the internet to reduce the call charges.

VoIP gateways are available in the form of external units and PCI cards. However, most of the business organizations prefer using the external units as their VoIP devices. Every VoIP gateway has a connector for getting connected to the IP network and one or more number of ports for connecting the phones lines to it.

V.  Kushwaha

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