| Some people have landline phones, some have | | | | VoIP has become a popular communication choice as |
| cellphones and others have VoIP. Voice over Internet | | | | it does have many great features including a relatively |
| Protocol (VoIP ) is a form of telecommunication that | | | | low cost and the ability to offer various phone |
| enables a person to make and receive calls over the | | | | features (I.E. call waiting, call forwarding, caller ID, etc.) |
| World Wide Web or other packet-switched networks. | | | | at not extra cost. However, not everything about this |
| The voice of the IP telephony subscriber is converted | | | | technology is beneficial. There are still some challenges |
| into a digital format, which is either achieved by | | | | it faces. For example, the quality of service can be |
| computer software or through Analog Telephone | | | | quite shaky and it isn't as stable as regular landlines. |
| Adaptor. This phone system typically interfaces with | | | | Furthermore, it can be very difficult to track down a |
| the traditional PSTN (public switched telephone | | | | broadband phone user. There numbers are not |
| network) to enable global transparent phone | | | | published in the public phone book. Therefore, you |
| communications. | | | | won't be able to search a person's name in a forward |
| The major features of a VoIP network are a call | | | | lookup to find their Internet-phone-number, nor will you |
| process server, broadband telephony gateways, an IP | | | | be able to use a reverse lookup with much success. |
| network, gatekeepers and user devices. These | | | | The reason is there are few directories that house |
| phones can be either hard or soft. For instance, a hard | | | | these numerical codes. In addition, some of these users |
| phone is very similar to a traditional telephone, but it | | | | actually have the ability to spoof their information, so |
| has an Ethernet port, not a jack. These devices | | | | the data that shows up on caller ID can be completely |
| require no connection to the computer. Conversely, the | | | | wrong, which would also make finding the numerical |
| soft kind depends on computer software to work. | | | | code via a backwards search impossible. |