A History of VoIP

A History of VoIP

The use of VoIP (voice over IP) is increasing rapidly year on year. It is predicted that by the end of 2009 there will be 256 million users of VOIP around the world. The advantages of VOIP in terms of scale, cost and easy of use are now commonly agreed upon. But where did VOIP begin? Who invented VOIP?

The history of VoIP extends further back into the world of pre internet that most people would think. The first VoIP calls where made as far back as 1973. The capability to send voice across a digital network was pioneered on the ARPANET network, the precursor to the modern Internet. It only carried data and voice between the private network of computers on the APRPANET grid but the seeds for the VOIP revolution where sown by these pioneers.

VoIP continued to developed amongst a small cache of computer users who used the technology to communicate with each other in a sort of geeky version of CB radio. Any two computers connected on the same network could use VoIP technology but there was no widespread adoption of the technology.

The first major step towards the VoIP services that many of use to today was the introduction of the software called "Internet Phone" from a US based company called Vocaltec. The first publicly available of f the shelve internet phone software from Vocaltec was the catalyst for the explosion in VOIP use. The Vocaltec software was able to run on a home PC and utilized much of the same hardware products that VoIP services use today in terms of soundcards, speakers and headsets. The Internet Phone software differed from most modern VOIP services in that it used the H.323 protocol instead of the SIP protocol that is more ubiquitous today.

Although Internet Phone was an immediate commercial success it did suffer from a variety of problems. The lack of high speed internet access meant that the quality could be poor and the flow of voice slow. Early VoIP calls where like using walkies-talkies to communicate in terms of quality of signal. Another issue was the fact that the two computers that where talking to each other needed to have the same soundcards with the same drivers for the software to work. This obviously limited the use of the software and the effectiveness of the process. Much of the transmission was done via modems and was therefore utilizing traditional telephone lines and providing a service that was of a worse quality to that of a normal phone call.

Once Vocaltec had laid the foundations the increase in the use of VOIP was fairly rapid accounting for 1% of all US phone calls by 1998. Other companies began to develop software for the VOIP market and also hardware in the terms of hard phone and network switches. The expansion of broadband also aided the growth of VOIP by increasing the quality of calls and reducing the latency issues that effected VOIP at the beginning. By the year 2000 VOIP calls in the US where about 3% of the total.

The popularity of VOIP has increased since the turn of the millennium and with free VOIP provider Skype currently having registered a staggering 400 million user accounts at the end of 2008. With the growing availability of VOIP services for mobile phones it looks as if the adoption of VOIP will continue to expand rapidly.