What are the differences between Internet telephone and traditional POTS telephone?
Voice over IP follows an architecture that is obviously different from the POTS which provides a voice call only through the circuit switched network of the PSTN. Voice over IP utilizes “packet” technology, these packets are sent out through the Internet. Each packet is encoded with an address, and reaches its destination independently. The packets regroup at the destination point, and are converted back into regular voice over telephone lines. Voice over IP allows much more information to be sent over the Internet than over circuit-switched networks. A telephone voice channel requires a 64Kbps connection, however an Internet telephone server uses 6.3Kbps per voice channel in each direction, the same lines are “shared” by different data without the need to keep the line open throughout the call. This lowers costs and optimizes line usage for voice and data.
