How much Bandwidth
is required for VoIP phones?By
Chris Landry
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A
long-standing question for potential VoIP (Voice over Internet
Protocol) consumers is “How much bandwidth does a VoIP phone require
to make quality telephone calls?”
First of all, Bandwidth is defined as the ability to
transfer data (such as a VoIP telephone call) from one point to
another in a fixed amount of time. The higher the bandwidth speed
you have, the more data you can send over your Broadband Internet
connection.
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There are two types of bandwidth at your location:
upload bandwidth and download bandwidth. The Upload Bandwidth is the
amount of data you can send to the Internet and download bandwidth
is the amount of data you can receive from the Internet. The
more Internet bandwidth you have from your ISP (Internet Service
Provider) the better.
In most cases, the
normal VoIP telephone call will use up 90 Kbps (kilobits per
second). If you have a Broadband Internet service provider
that doesn’t offer much bandwidth then most VoIP providers give you
the option to lower the VoIP voice quality by lowering the bandwidth
used for VoIP calls to 60 Kbps or, to really conserve your
bandwidth, 30 Kbps. Many people can hardly tell the difference
between the three settings. We suggest you use the high sound
quality setting (90 Kpbs in most cases), if bandwidth is not an
issue. High VoIP voice quality is generally the default setting but
if you are running into a situation where your bandwidth is limited
then you can adjust your VoIP bandwidth to one of the lower
settings. Some consumers with 128 Kbps upload connections can
receive less VoIP service quality due to a poor quality ISP
(Internet Service Provider). By selecting a lower quality VoIP
bandwidth setting, this problem can be avoided.
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If you plan on using a VoIP service provider,
should you get DSL or a Cable Internet access provider? In general,
DSL upload bandwidth starts at 128k where as Cable Internet upload
bandwidth starts at around 600k. Cable Internet is a little bit more
expensive, but it is also about 4-5 times faster than DSL and a bit
friendlier to a VoIP telephone call. Having said that, both
DSL and cable modem high-speed services provide sufficient broadband
Internet access bandwidth to support any of the VoIP service
providers. If you are experiencing low Broadband Internet
Service provider bandwidth, we suggest you try Packet8
VoIP. Packet8 VoIP boasts an advanced compression
technology in which each active voice line uses approximately only
23Kbps of total data throughput, upstream and downstream.
The amount of bandwidth that a VoIP provider
requires to make a quality telephone call is only one thing to
consider when choosing a VoIP service provider. In fact, there
are many things to consider when choosing a VoIP provider. An
educated consumer generally results in a satisfied
consumer. Please see VoIP
things to consider article to find a list
of more things to consider when choosing a VoIP provider.
You can compare
VoIP providers side-by-side at
www.VoIPChoices.com
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