What is VoIP?
VoIP stands for Voice over IP (Internet Protocol). It is a generic term that describes the transmission of voice services over a data line. VoIP has been around for years in various different guises but has only recently reached the general public as a viable service.
VoIP allows you to make phone calls from any geographic location, anywhere in the world provided you have a suitable Internet connection. Your assigned incoming number will reach you wherever you are provided you are connected and your phone is registered with our VoIP service. Calls received when you are not connected can be re-routed to another phone or to your mobile or the call can be answered by your personal voicemail service.
Voice over IP can reduce the cost of phone calls to everywhere in the world, making calling the other side of the globe as easy as calling your neighbour and often at a similar or even lower cost.
What VoIP protocols do you support?
We support SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) which is the industry standard for VoIP calls. We also support IAX (Inter asterisk exchange) since all our PBX's are designed around the opensource VoIP system Asterisk made by Digium.
Quality of VoIP calls?
Quality can vary depending on what is supported by the far end phone network. On our VOIP service you have a choice of a variety of codecs (audio quality). The best codec for European use is known as Alaw (G711a) which is the european ISDN standard for voice calls, i.e. if you call an office you would normally be speaking to them over ISDN the quality you hear matches the quality you get using the Alaw codec. We also support GSM (mobile codec) and G729 (proprietry). Most VOIP phones (hardphones and softphones) support two of the above three and they all support Alaw.
I have ADSL - how many phone calls will that support?
Again this will vary. As stated above you have a variety of different codecs. Alaw being the recommended best quality uses the largest amount of bandwidth. Below is a rough breakdown of how many calls a Domestic Max 8M/400k ADSL will support. Please be aware the limiting factor for VoIP calls is your upstream speed (upo to 400kbps).
| Codec |
Simultaneous calls |
Description |
| Alaw |
4 |
European ISDN quality |
| Ulaw |
4 |
US ISDN quality |
| GSM |
6-7 |
Mobile phone quality |
| G729 |
8-9 |
Proprietry |
Physically the ADSL line may be capable of supporting more than the above number of simultaneous calls. However our aim is to provide the best quality of calls required without creating collisions with other data packets (such as browsing, email etc).
For users regularly requiring more than one active call we recommend that a dedicated ADSL connection should be used for voip calls.
Can I access all UK and International numbers?
At present you cannot access 999/122 Emergency Services, some premium rate numbers or certain Directory Enquiries services (118 xxx ).
Emergency Services (999/112) Coming soon
Availability of your voip service is dependant upon your local power supply and your Internet connection. Failure of either of these will render your voip service inoperable.
We recommend that you retain a line powered telephone connected to a normal land line, or a fully charged mobile phone for use in emergency.It is also desirable to select a voip hardware phone capable of being connected to a normal (BT) land line.
The voip service will support calling emergency services soon, (target prior to September 2008). Once the service is available you will be required to register the primary physical location of each connection to our voip service. You will be responsible for maintaining this information through your account control panel. The registered information will be automatically made available to the emergency services operator.
Please note that the emergency services operator may not be able to call back if the call is not completed or the line drops. They will also be unable to hold the line open in the event of a hang-up.
If the service is suspended or cancelled then you may be unable to call 999/112.
Directory Enquiries
You can access durectory enquiries by dialing 118. This will take you to our standard directory enquiries service and calls cost 40 Pence per enquiry.
So what services can I get?
We offer two types of service:
- VoIP accounts (one to many) on our central VoIP server. There are options suitable for both busines and domestic users.
- Custom built PBX to suit your particular business need.
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