VoIP (voice over internet protocol) converts the voice into digital packets and sends them over an IP network, such as the internet or a company network. At the other end, the packets are reassembled and played back as sound. Calls to and from ordinary phone numbers pass through a gateway or a SIP trunk that links the VoIP network to the public telephone network.
A VoIP call has three parts:
- Signaling: a protocol, almost always SIP, sets up, changes and ends the call.
- Media: the voice travels as RTP packets, encoded with a codec such as G.711, G.729 or Opus.
- Endpoints: IP desk phones, softphones or browser-based phones.
Compared with traditional lines, VoIP makes long-distance and international calls cheaper, lets a number ring anywhere with an internet connection, and makes it easy to add users and features such as IVR menus and call queues. The network sets the quality: latency, jitter and packet loss cause delay, echo or choppy audio, so a stable connection matters. Copper telephone networks are being switched off across Europe; in France, the copper network closes in stages until 2030.
OVOKY is a VoIP platform: calls run in the browser agent workspace and voice is billed per second. VoIP operators can also use OVOKY's SIP trunk and hosted softswitch.