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VoIP is essentially a method for taking analog audio signals, like the kind you hear when you talk on the phone, and turning them into digital data that can be transmitted over the Internet. While you are speaking, this type of transmission is more often than not point-to-point. i.e. your VoIP phone talking directly to your friends VoIP phone. However to get to this point a few things must take place. Account Creation Most people will choose a preferred ITSP (Internet Telephone Service Provider). Most provide free registration. For a list of providers check out http://www.sipbroker.com/sipbroker/...viderWhitePages Once you have your account credentials, you enter them into your phone as per your ITSP's instructions. Now we come to SIP. SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) is a signalling used for many purposes including VoIP. Before you can talk with your friend using VoIP you must first be able to reach them. This is where SIP comes into play. Lets assume your provider is abc.com and your friendÂs provider is xyz.com and that your number is 123456 and your friends is 987654. This makes your URI (Uniform Resource Identifier) 123456@abc.com and your friends 987654@xyz.com Registration When you turn on your phone it will first of all attempt to register itself with your ITSP. This tells your provider what your IP address is so that your inbound calls are able to reach you. When your friend turns on their phone the same thing occurs with their provider. Making a Call When you make a call, your phone also uses your providerÂs server to find the recipient. This is known as an INVITE request. Now consider the problem of dialling your friend. His URI is 987654@xyz.com and you are 123456@abc.com. To make a call to him, you must somehow enter this information. As you can see, entering @xyz.com is no easy feat using a numeric keypad. This is where SIP Broker helps out. If you were to configure your phone to use SIP Broker (as per our FAQ) xyz.com can be allocated a SIP-Code (a 3 digit numeric prefix). This means that you can simply type *<xyz's SIP-Code> 987654 and your call will route to 987654@xyz.com. This we believe makes it feel more like a phone. Other benefits we offer are the ability to assign a SIP Broker alias to your URI . A SIP Broker alias is like an IDD phone number. E.g. if your friend was in Australia, his SIP Broker alias could be set-up as e.g. 61-555-1234 which maps to his 987654@xyz.com URI. If you wanted to call him using this number you simply dial *011-61-555-1234. The beauty of a SIP Broker alias is that it is unique and yours forever. This means that if you change providers you can simply update your new URI in the SIP Broker member details screen and your inbound calls will automatically redirect to your new details. As you can see, you are not forever notifying your friends / family of your new provider details. Other benefits include white pages, support forum and also coming soon a personalised phone book service. |