Before getting set up with VOIP, it is important to know what you are doing. Luckily, VOIP tutorials are available quite readily online.

A VOIP tutorial can go over any of the major aspects of VOIP. A VOIP cabling tutorial will often look at unshielded twisted pair cabling, which is the most common type of cabling used. If you get a new VOIP telephone system, a tutorial may be the thing you need to ensure that you know how to use all of the features.

For a basic VOIP tutorial, read on.

The most basic thing of a VOIP tutorial is to define it. VOIP, also known as voice over IP, is a term for facilities that manage the delivery of voice information using Internet Protocol. Usually, your voice is sent in digitalized discrete packets instead of the traditional circuit-committed protocols used by your traditional telephone network.

When you get down to VOIP fundamentals, there are some differences between VOIP and voice and data convergence. VOIP is using an Internet Protocol network, while voice and data convergence refers to sending voice and data over any data network. VOIP is also different than IP telephony in that IP telephony will send any telephone service over IP, including faxes.

H.323 was approved by the ITU in 1996 to make videoconference transmissions more compatible over IP networks. It is now the standard for interoperability because it deals with call control and management for different types of conferences, media traffic, bandwidth, and user participation. SIP is the IETF’s standard protocol for starting an interactive user session with multimedia elements. SIP can handle Internet telephony calls, and it and H.323 compete with each other for VOIP services.

VOIP often has difficulties with regulations, and is actually illegal in many countries. In some states, VOIP is considered an “information service” instead of a “telecommunications service” meaning that it is not under traditional telephone regulations.

In order to use VOIP, you need to make sure that you have the VOIP basic components. You need to know the types of traffic on your network and decide which is most important. You will then want to look at your current call traffic and predict future statistics such as the cost, how often you will need to make multiple calls at once, and the average length. You also need to be sure that you have enough reliable bandwidth to handle the added applications.