VoIP-Point

Broadband Suppliers and VoIP

As important as choosing your hardware and VoIP service provider is choosing your Broadband supplier. Voice over IP on the internet is dependant on the bandwidth speeds made possible by ADSL and Cablemodem technology but not all providers are equal.

The speed you need.

Most broadband connections are asymmetric in terms of their speed. That is to say that they provide more downstream bandwidth (from the web to you) than they do upstream (vice-versa). The upstream is important to your VoIP systems as a roughly symmetric amount of data will be sent during any full-duplex call. For a single VoIP ‘line’, just 64kbps upstream may be sufficient, so VoIP on an ISDN line is possible but not ideal. For multiple simultaneous calls, 128kbps upstream would be reasonable and 256kbps is ideal. You should be able to find out these upstream speeds from the broadband supplier’s websites. These speeds are something you should check before taking a broadband service.

Caps and Quotas.

Many broadband suppliers now apply caps and quotas to their services to limit the total amount of data that can be transferred by the customer across their network. (Note that this is different from ’speed’). In its most basic form, a ‘cap’ would just cut you off after you had transferred a certain amount of data in one day or one month. In actual fact, caps can be more complex where either the service speed is reduced after a given amount of data is transferred or there is an ‘excess’ charge for ‘units’ of data of a pre-determined size after the limit.

In the case of the speed being reduced after the cap or limit is reached, this would be far from ideal for VoIP systems and would more than likely impair your ability to make VoIP calls for the duration of the day/month. In the case of excess charging, the cost involved would probably run in the fact of the concept of VoIP being a cheap or free way to make calls.

Of course, there are some broadband providers out there who do not cap or limit their services. These are probably the best suppliers to use even though you may sometimes pay a small premium in the future. It is worth noting that many new services provided across the internet require large amounts of data transfer so searching to find a high-capped provider or an uncapped provider is a worthwhile enterprise.

Quality of the provider.

When selecting your broadband provider, it should be remembered that for VoIP calls to be seemless, the data has to get through. If your ADSL or Cable provider has a poor service and regular outages, VoIP may at best be difficult and at worst impossible. The best way to find out what sort of service any given provider has is to search the web for reviews. Remember: generally, you only hear about problems with providers and not praise for them.