Overview of the current situation of Voice over Internet Protocol

VoIP technology, while still not prominent, is set to radically change the way voice data is communicated throughout the world. This paper looks to briefly outline the current state of VoIP technology and the positive and negative aspects which it currently faces. The paper briefly looks at the high level difference between the current dominating technology, PSTN and VoIP. How these two technologies work is also briefly looked at with the focus on VoIP (such as an explanation of protocols it uses). The main focus of the paper is the positive and negative issues associated with the new technology. Among the positive issues is cost savings to the user and telecommunication companies alike. The technology also has the ability to support many more services which is currently not possible on the PSTN. There are a whole range of negative issues which presently plague the technology. Quality of service is important for callers and a problem caused by the inherent nature of the underlying infrastructure. A whole range of security issues are also prominent such as confidentiality of callers and integrity of the data being passed. VoIP also has the potential to compromise security in networks if not setup and mange correctly