From: daveng@dgmm.net   
      
   On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 11:20:58 -0800, puritan_2076 wrote:   
      
   > But I do have just one stupid question, though.   
   >   
   > What is VOIP?   
      
   Voice Over IP.  Voice phone calls over an IP network, eg the Internet.   
      
   Becoming very common in company environments now partly because it's all   
   managed over the IT infrastructure instead of two seperate ones for   
   computers and phone, partly because every office worldwide can be linked   
   "internally" by an IP based phone system and partly because you can choose   
   your phone number and area code.   
      
   A guy I know runs a web design company.  He lives in London and has VOIP   
   0208 London number.  He spends some months of the year living in Spain.   
   All he does is connects up to the local ISP in Spain, plugs his VOIP phone   
   into the router and his calls now magically appear on his "house" phone in   
   Spain even though his clients are calling a UK London STD number ;-)   
      
   Oh yeah, almost forgot.  IP phone calls are usually free to other phones   
   on the same network (and those with cross-over agreements) no matter where   
   in the world they are physically located.  Usually calls from VOIP to   
   other VOIP networks are nearly free while calls to landlines are usually   
   cheaper than landline to landline.   
      
   Phew.  End of marketing speak :-)   
      
   Think of it as Skype on steroids.   
      
   --   
   DaveG   
      
   "Creationists make it sound as though a 'theory' is something you dreamt   
   up after being drunk all night."   Isaac Asimov   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)