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Voice Quality

Implementing the VoIP is not as easy as it may seem. The main problem is the voip voice quality. Digitalizing one's voice, coding it, sending it over the Internet, then decoding it - all these in real time - is the real challenge.

Among the most important things for voip voice quality is to give the virtual environment a more realistic impression. And the best way to do that is to add three dimensional (3D) effects to the voice signal. The interlocutor should be able to determine roughly where the source of the voice signal is located.

There are two possible ways to do that. The sender device can process its own voice signal to appear as coming from a certain location. Or the receiver adds the three dimensional effect to the sound.

In order to maintain a real time conversation it is essential that the data packets sent by the sender are received by the receiver as soon as possible. For this it is necessary to send across the network, at regular intervals, data blocks containing digitized speech, so that the receiver can pick them up and decode them.

Endpoint equipment can influence (in a good or bad way) the voip voice quality. So, if you want a clear sound, don't be cheap with the equipment. Among things that influence (in a bad way) the voip voice quality is packet loss. It doesn't matter whether it is because of excessive network jitter and latency or network drops. The voip voice quality will be affected to the point where you won't be able to hear the other person speaking. Voice clarity is considered to be an indicator of voip voice quality, but other factors influence it as well. Latency is one of them. Delays caused by network congestions can have unwanted effects, such as adopting walkie-talkie style of conversation. If users don't receive a prompt dial tone when taking a phone off-hook, or if their calls take a long time to connect, fail to connect, or disconnect prematurely, users will be dissatisfied -- even if the voice quality is stellar.

All in all, voip voice quality isn't just about clarity. It involves a lot of things that the users will pick up when they will first use a VoIP. Voip voice quality is a standard imposed by the new era in which we live, an era in which everything must be as close to perfection as possible.