The Disadvantages of VoIP

VoIP is expected to become the leader in telecommunication technologies unless it has already become one. Boosted popularity of VoIP services contributes to the advantages of IP telephony over traditional phone systems. However VoIP is still a developing technology with a short history therefore much is to be done to guarantee the quality sufficient to satisfy any user.

VoIP offers a lot of features that make it attractive to numerous individual users and businesses. More and more customers resort to VoIP services but VoIP providers and developers still have a lot of problems to solve.

The disadvantages of IP telephony are not as explicit as the advantages of VoIP but a few troubles may occur.

VoIP phones rely on the power therefore you are not able to use VoIP when the power goes off. Ordinary phones can still be used as they use the power supplied through the separate phone line not connected to the power supply lines. The solution available is to use batteries or power generators to produce power.

Another disadvantage of VoIP becomes evident when you need to contact 911 emergency services. 911 calling centre can trace the call that comes from a conventional phone to identify your location in case you can't speak or do not know where you are. But 911 calling centre can't tell where the call comes from in case of VoIP and thereby they are unable to determine what the nearest emergency centre to you is. Nevertheless there is a VoIP option called e911 that attempts to solve the issue.

Some people add the sound quality issue to the list of disadvantaged of VoIP. Data transmitted over internet protocol usually reaches the place of destination in a scrambled order. That is not a problem for documents as the data can be reorganized upon arrival. But if the data arrives disorganized the sound quality may suffer seriously. VoIP is designed to provide a real time communication so the data has very little time to reorganize. Besides, some packets may be dropped in case they do not arrive on time. All these factors can become the underlying causes of the period of silence during the conversation.

Besides, as VoIP uses internet connection VoIP services are susceptible to the same hazards as other internet services are – latencies, jitters, viruses, worms and hacking can frustrate your VoIP calls. The crush of the system will make you unable to place and receive calls.

However all the disadvantages of VoIP are currently being worked at and IP telephony is expected to become the most convenient, reliable, and economic and infrastructure efficient means of telecommunications.