Voice over IP (VoIP) is a general term for a family of transmission technologies for the delivery of voice communications over IP networks such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voip
My definition of VOIP:
I talk into an IP device (phone, video conferencing system, computer, etc), and that device uses a microphone to convert my analog voice frequencies into an electrical signal. The IP device then samples that analog signal and converts it to binary data (ones and zeros) that can (eventually) be used by another device to convert back to an analog signal and played through a speaker. Last, those ones and zeros are then capsulated into Internet Protocol (IP) Packets and sent across an IP network like the Internet, MPLS, etc.
So there is definitely much more that goes on, but you get the point.
What uses VOIP these days?
- Business phone systems
- Video conferencing systems
- Online gaming devices
- Internet-based communication applications like Skype and Google
- Security systems
- SIP Trunking
And the list goes on.
