How much bandwidth does a typical VoIP conversation use?
When you use VoIP, one of a number of encoding algorithms is used – depending on the bandwidth available at each end. The ‘benchmark’ algorithm is the uncompressed one – how standard phone calls are sent along the phone lines. This takes up 64kbps in each direction. Adding overheads – it is approximately 80kbps in each direction. Other algorithms (which are more commonly used with VoIP) are indistinguishable in quality, but add compression (similar to how MP3s manage to compress the music, without affecting the quality much). These encoding algorithms generally reduce the bandwidth (including overheads) to between 12 and 36kbps. In addition to the encoding algorithm, VoIP does ‘silence suppression’. Since for much of the phone call, one (or both) parties are not speaking, it is pointless to take up all that bandwidth transmitting silence – so this part is not transmitted. As a general rule, you might say that 100% of the time, one party isn’t talking (in other words, each person doesn’
