The Essentials of VoIP Gateways

VoIP gateways act as VoIP network translators and mediators, translating telephone calls that are placed through the 'normal' telephone services into digital data packets that are compatible with a service providers VoIP system. These gateways also assist in routing telephone calls to the correct users. Within VoIP there are also different protocols, and the gateways are able to translate one protocol into the next protocol. This protocol translation is important because it enables different VoIP systems to talk to each other. Because of all of these benefits it is easy to see why VoIP gateways are highly recommended for any VoIP service.

More VoIP gateway products have become available to customers as the popularity of VoIP as a stable telephone service has increased. Some of the well known manufacturers of gateways include Nortel Networks and Cisco Systems.

VoIP gateways can either be hardware or software based. The hardware gateways tend to cost more than software gateways and can be purchased as a stand alone box. They do not put additional load on existing servers and are generally believed to be more reliable than the software ones.

There are many functional options available for gateway products, including fax, STN, and PBX enabled products that offer more than just simple call handling.

The basic VoIP gateways at the lower end of the cost graph comes equipped with a firewall, a router, and a telephone jack, and can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. This type of device can offer three ports: one for a telephone jack, one for a broadband modem or router and one for a computer or network device. These low end VoIP gateways targets the home user and small business owner.

At the mid range of gateways, additional functionality such as signal encryption and voice compression is offered to ensure security and efficient bandwidth usage.

At the higher end of the market are VoIP gateways that cost several thousand dollars and are widely used by telephone carriers and large companies. They support thousands of channels for advanced voice services, such as IVR - Interactive Voice Response - that allows callers to select an option from a voice menu. They also offer other functions like conference calling and call recording.

There are new features and functions for VoIP gateways being built all of the time, such as support for emerging VoIP standards and faster translations. Distribution of these upgrades tend to be very quick and efficient since most of them are sent out over the Internet as software upgrades.

One can expect to see many more enhancements and improvements before VoIP and VoIP gateways can be considered a matured and saturated market. The end user benefits from these improvements because quality and range of services increase while overall call costs tend to be constantly driven downwards.