Voice Over IP (VoIP)

Mayoor Savla
Vitaliy Zavesov
 What is VoIP?
 VoIP is a term used in IP telephony to
describe a set of facilities for managing the
delivery of voice information using the
Internet Protocol.
 This means sending voice information in digital
form in discrete packets rather than in the circuit
committed protocols of the Public Switched
Telephone Network (PSTN).

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 Components of a VoIP System (1)

Talk Silence

Encoder Decoder &

Concealment

talkspurt Depacketizer &

Packetizer playout buffer
silence
Network
Receiver
Sender

 Speech is an analog signal that is converted to a digital signal at

the sender using encoding schemes such as PCM.
 Signal alternates between talkspurts and silence periods
 CELP based encoders provider rate reduction
 Encoded Speech is packetized into packets of equal size

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 Components of the VoIP System (2)
 Packets are sent over an IP network using a UDP
Protocol
 TCP is usually too heavy for voice applications
 A playout buffer is used to smooth playout at the
receiver
 Content of received voice packets is delivered to the
decoder which reconstructs the speech signal
 May implement various packet loss concealment techniques
to replace lost packets

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 Technical Advantages of VoIP
 With circuit-switched technology, capacity is allocated for the
length of the call, regardless if voice is being transported at any
time. VoIP technology uses bandwidth more efficiently
 VoIP is perceived to be open and flexible, allowing providers to
take advantage of equipment and technology at a higher level of
productivity and cost savings
 Offer customers exciting new phone features
 Unified Messaging
 Personal Portals
 Caller ID on TV set
 Point, Click and call personal directories
 Talking email
 Need a single line to talk on the phone and surf the Internet at the
same time

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 Business Advantages of VoIP
 Cost Reduction: There can be a real savings in long distance telephone
costs which is extremely important to most companies – especially
those with International markets
 Regionalize functions and equipment associated with delivering phone
service – and spread costs across multiple markets
 Simplification: Integrated Voice/Data Network allows more
standardization and reduces total equipment needs.
 Telecom providers can look to leverage their experience and infrastructure
(i.e., existing nationwide backbone network)
 Consolidation: Consolidation of accounting systems and combining
operations leads to efficiency
 Expand phone services into new markets (developing nations – Asia,
Latin America)
 No existing telephone/cable network and Costs are too high
 VoIP Over Satellite - Use of VSATs

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 Quality of Voice Issues(1)
 Transmission of voice packets over a network is subject to
packet loss due to network elements - causing degradation in
voice quality at the receiver
 Additional loss is incurred in the playout buffer at the receiver
caused by network delay jitter
 Interactivity between the communicating parties is affected by
the delays incurred in the network
 Large delay may lead to collisions whereby participants can talk in
turns
 Should be maintained below a certain maximum – NTE 150ms –
possibly shorter for conversations with stringent interactivity delays
 No control over how the packets are routed to reach their
destination

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 Quality of Voice Issues (2)
 Voice Encoding affects the Quality of Speech
 Presence of echo - a major source of quality
degradation in voice communication
 Reflection of signals at the four to two wire hybrids
(combination of VoIP segment and a circuit segment)
 PC-based phones – microphone at remote end picks up the
voice played on the loud-speakers and echoes it back to the
speaker

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 Packet Loss
 Loss Concealment Techniques
 Insert Silence, Noise or a previously received packet
 Interpolate, regenerate based on structure of codec and
exploit decoder state
 <5 consecutive packets
 Increase in background noise as long as percentage of
speech loss remains relatively low
 Use of loss concealment techniques to mitigate packet loss
 > ~20 consecutive packets
 Cannot be concealed due to loss of intelligibility
 Improve Network Reliability and decrease network
configuration time when failures occur

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 Packet Delay
 Delay variations (Jitter)
 Use of a playout buffer at the receiver to achieve a smooth
playback of speech
 Fixed Scheduling of packet playback – constant end-to end
delay on all packets.
 packets exceeding target delay are dropped
 Adaptive Scheduling of packet playback – delay constant
within a talkspurt but varies from one talkspurt to another.
 Schemes are ineffective as it is impossible to have an
apriori determination of variation in delay
 Pattern of packet loss
 Magnitude of delay variations
 Rate at which variations take place

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 Present Day Commercial Deployment
 Presently used in Intranets to support full-duplex,
real-time voice communications since they have
more predictable bandwidth available than public
network
 Corporations limit their Internet voice traffic to half-
duplex asynchronous applications such as voice
messaging
 Enterprise positions a VoIP device at a gateway

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 VoIP Gateways
 A gateway converts telephone conversation into the correct
format as data packets to enable it to travel across a data
network.
 Gateways can be used with standard phone and fax equipment,
connected to it through a PBX (Private Branch Exchange -
private telephone switchboard)
 Gateways contain such devices as signal translators, protocol
translators, fault isolators, and other devices needed to
implement VoIP communication.
 Current gateway implementations include cable, DSL, wireless,
and satellite (VSAT) gateways.

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 Drawbacks of Current Internet
Telephony Solutions
 Voice Transmission are treated the same as data
transmissions and providers have little control over
the quality of the transmissions once they hit the
public Internet
 Internet Telephony does not offer emergency 911,
operator services or QoS guarantees
 Lack of standardized protocols imply that Internet
Telephony products do not interoperate with each
other or with PSTN

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 Potential Future Markets for VoIP
 Equipment developers and manufacturers see a window of
opportunity to innovate and compete. They are busy developing
new VoIP-enabled equipment attempting to break into the
market in time.
 3Com NBX Solutions
 Cisco Unity Bridge
 Avaya ECLIPSE product suite
 SysMaster VoiceMaster products
 Alloptic GEAR family of products
 Internet service providers see the possibility of competing with
PSTN for customers
 Users are interested in the integration of voice and data
applications in addition to cost savings

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 Issues for VoIP to be
commercialized
 Technology is not fully developed to the point where it can
replace the services and quality provided by PSTN
 Must be clear that VoIP is indeed cost-effective.
 Protect its investment in circuit switched telecom operations since
VoIP would be complementary to its existing technology
 Significant costs to setup networks and other pieces of transport
architecture
 There must be significantly lower total cost of operation compared
to today’s PSTN
 Service Providers are awaiting the development of the
remaining pieces of technology that will ensue quality transport
in the last mile
 Connection from homes and businesses to the IP back-bone

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 References
 Assessing the Quality of Voice Communications over Internet
Backbones by A. Markopoulou, F. Tobagi, M. Karam
 Is the Internet ready for VoIP by F. Tobagi, A. Markopoulou, M.
Karam
 Assessment of VoIP Service Availability in the Current Internet
by W. Jiang and H. Schulzrinne
 Whitepaper: Preparing for the Promise of Voice-over Internet
Protocol (VoIP) – Cox Communications
 http://www.nwfusion.com/research/voip.html

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