Voice over IP
<communications> (VoIP) Any technology providing voice telephony services over
IP, including CODECs,
streaming protocols and session control.
The major advantage of VoIP is lower cost, by avoiding dedicated voice circuits.
Currently VoIP is being deployed on internal corporate networks, and, via the
Internet, for low cost (and low quality) international calls.
It is also used for telephony applications such as voice and fax mail.
The
ITU standard is
H.323, which is a whole suite of protocols, while the
IETF has developed the much simpler
SIP to solve the session control problem and
MGCP/Megaco to solve the gateway problem.
