Where to Start

If you’ve been put off by VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) the past couple years, we know why: It wasn’t for the cost, it was for the quality and reliability concerns. We get that.

"In many cases, gone are the days when using VoIP was like testing walkie-talkies," writes industry observer Nadeem Unuth, who notes "there has been much improvement."

Unuth is correct, there has been much improvement. And yes, taken in the aggregate, VoIP for all that doesn’t quite have that across-the-board clear voice quality and proper voice management that your good old landline has. We get that too. And we’re not telling you to lower your expectations; we like good, clear voice as much as anyone. VoIP’s getting there, and these are the areas Unuth outlines for improvement:

Bandwidth. Your Internet connection. The bandwidth you have for VoIP is the key for voice quality, Unuth explains that if you have dial-up connection, you’re not going to get great quality. Broadband is better, as long as it’s not shared with too many other communication applications. This is one of the thorniest issues to solve, indeed.

Phone frequencies. Here’s something you probably didn’t know: "The frequency of your IP phone may cause interference with other VoIP equipment," Unuth notes.

Weather Conditions. Like the interference you at times get from satellite TV reception, VoIP can be distorted by static, which as Unuth explains so then, is "a small 'dirty-weed' static electricity generated on broadband lines due to thunderstorms, heavy rain, strong gusts, electrical impulses" and other causes. You don’t notice it when you’re looking at Web pages because you don’t care in what order the page loads, nevertheless you notice it with voice because you do care what part of the word you hear first. "It is easy to get rid of static," Unuth says, simply "unplug your hardware and plug it back again."