Web based Video Conferencing Part 1. Next time I will go into more details covering Web Video conferencing in part 2.

VoIP Primer

VoIP stands for voice over IP. It is an easy and cost effective
solution to get connected to the world of telephony with the aid
of the internet. You have probably seen commercials for one or
more of the VoIP or digital phone providers such as Vonage, AT&T
CallVantange, Packet8, ACN, Time Warner Digital Phone, and ComCast
Digital Voice.These services are basically a replacement of or supplement to your plain old telephone service (POTS), public switched telephone network (PSTN).VoIP can reduce your local and long-distance charges by 50 percent or more, depending on your telephone use, because many of
these services give you unlimited local and long-distance calling anywhere in the United States and Canada for one fixed price . These services require that you have high-speed or broadband Internet, but they are still cheaper than Mabell local and long-distance charges. These services use the Internet to relay voice calls, which is what makes it cheaper. The quality of VoIP tends to be as good as that of your regular telephone service.

How VoIP Carries a Conversation

Human speech is made up of analog sound waves, which can be transmitted using straightforward techniques. A phone on the PSTN can represent your voice as a continuous stream of voltage changes on a copper wire (this is referred to as a carrier signal). When the carrier signal reaches the other end (the receiving phone), the electric signals excite a diaphragm (more commonly known as a speaker), which produces a good approximation, or “analogy,” of your voice. For digital telephony (including VoIP), a dedicated circuit does not transmit the voice, so human speech must be converted to a digital stream (or a series of 1s and 0s) by the transmitter and then re-created on the receiving end. Analog-to-digital conversion is accomplished by sampling, which is the process of taking many instantaneous measurements of an analog signal.

VoIP Features

With your traditional phone service, you have no doubt become accustomed to a bunch of features such as call waiting, call forwarding, caller ID, and so on. How do these change with a broadband phone service? Simple they don’t. You still get the features you are used to as well as a few new cool ones such as:
Phone Number Flexibility (You can keep your Same Phone Number and you can get Virtual Phone Numbers).
Online Call Management (such as Voice Mail, Call Forwarding, Call Logs )

Audio Conferencing

Audio conference calling gives you the ability to get connected with a group of people wherever you may be situated. As an example Skype provides great audio calls and the capability of having a five-person audio conference call, and if you have the proper hardware, a 10-person audio conference calls. This feature of audio conference calling is beneficial to resolve issues without having to wait. The only expense involved in audio conference calling is the cost of a telephone and followed by the charge of a long distance call, or the cost of being connected to the internet.

Video Conferencing

According to www.whatis.com, the term videoconferencing is defined as, “A live connection between people in separate locations for the purpose of communication, usually involving audio and often text as well as video. At its simplest, videoconferencing provides transmission of static images and text between two locations. At its most sophisticated, it provides transmission of full-motion video images and high-quality audio between multiple locations.”
Live video gives a conference a sense of closeness. Any meeting you held through video conference calling gives your business a professional look. It is an effective way of communicating with your clients, partners or employees. Moreover, what you hear could be something altogether different from what the members of a conference want to convey. With video conference calling, you stand to know what is in their mind by seeing their face and body language.

Multimedia Conferencing

A user can organize a conference using a calendaring program, but with the added ability to determine which conferencing capabilities each participant has access to at a given moment. Thereby, the host can best match a multimedia presentation to the group, both as individuals and as a whole. Media options could include voice, video, text, graphics, and white boarding.

Internet VoIP Phone Services Providers:

Internet VoIP phone services include any service that can provide phone services over the Internet. These services are popular for providing low-cost additional phone lines to homes.

Packet8
Packet8 is a provider of VoIP or digital phone services that also offers the option of a video telephone. Packet8 charges extra for the video telephone option, but does discount the video telephones. You can contact Packet8 at: www.packet8.net (866) 879-8647.

ACN
ACN is a provider of VoIP or digital phone services that also offers the option of a video telephone.ACN does not charge extra for the video telephone option, but does charge more for the video telephone devices. You can contact ACN at: www.myacn.com (888)414-1958.

Vonage
Vonage is the leader in residential VoIP or digital phone services in the United States and offer a video telephone.You can contact Vonage at: www.vonage.com (866) 243-4357.

Lingo
Here is another service similar to Vonage. They offer most if not all of the services that Vonage offers including the simul-ring feature but they offer different phone service plans. They offer plans from as little as $7.95 per month to as much as $29.95 per month. They are worth looking into. http://www.lingo.com/

WorldGate Ojo
The Ojo is not a typical VoIP provider. The Ojo is a different-looking video telephone device. It has a cordless telephone and can make voice calls and video calls. The Ojo Shadow does not have the cordless phone and can make only video calls. The one disadvantage of the Ojo is that it cannot be connected to a television, which limits its use in my opinion. We think that all video telephones should be able to connect to a television set for a bigger picture.The Ojo is a clever little device, though, with a seven-inch diagonal screen, which is larger than most other video telephones.WorldGate believes that their seven-inch diagonal screen should be enough to have a robust video call. With the recent drop in price by WorldGate, this is a good option for a video telephone. It also uses the higher-quality MPEG4 video codec, so provides a much sharper image than other video telephones. Contact WorldGate Ojo at: www.wgate.com/ojo/.

Verizon
The advantage to a Verizon broadband telephone service is their bundled service feature. If you have a cellular, internet and internet phone service plan with them then it may make sense to go this route. But you will not notice the value of going with them for the broadband telephone service by itself. www.voicewing.com

Magic Jack
Though this is not considered an internet phone line, this adapter only works by being attached to a usb port on your computer. But this little guy is taking telephone industry by storm! They have a current promotion whereby they give you a 30 day trial offer to make all the phone calls you want. The initial fee is $39.99 for the first year. Every year thereafter will be $19.99 per year, not per month but per year. They are still new, but enhancing their service every day. Very soon you will be able to switch your current phone number to this device.

Cable VoIP Digital Phone Services:

Cable VoIP phone services are similar to Internet VoIP services (actually they are kind of a subset). The primary difference is that your cable provider, which typically provides you with high-speed broadband Internet access, also provides you with a VoIP-based digital phone service. These services are increasingly popular as a replacement for your primary PSTN line:

Cablevision Optimum Voice. www.optimumvoice.com
Charter Telephone. www.charter.com
Comcast Home Phone Service. www.comcast.com
Cox Digital Telephone. www.cox.com
Time Warner Cable Digital Phonewww.timewarnercable.com/corporate/products/digitalphone/

VoIP Chat Services:

VoIP chat services are a bit different from Internet VoIP and cable VoIP services. While those services operate similarly to
PSTN telephone services, including being assigned a normal phone number, VoIP chat services work much more like instant messaging (IM) programs, and are often referred to as PC-to-PC calling. These services are rapidly growing as a low-cost method for international calling and are popular with teenagers for general unlimited talking to each other.
AOL Instant Messenger. http://www.aim.com
Google Talk. http://www.google.com/talk
MSN Messenger. http://messenger.msn.com
Skype. http://www.skype.com
Yahoo! Messenger. http://messenger.yahoo.com
Next time I will go into more details covering Video conferencing.

Stay tuned.
Danouma.com