VOIP & VoLTE & VPN

•  VoIP is an acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol that describes the method to place and receive phone calls over the internet. 
• Most people consider VoIP the alternative to the local telephone company. 
• If you have a reasonable quality Internet connection you can get phone service delivered through your Internet connection instead of from your local phone company. 
• Some people use VOIP in addition to their traditional phone service, since VOIP service providers usually offer lower rates than traditional phone companies. 
• VoIP service providers do more than establishing calls. They perform routing of outgoing and incoming calls through existing telephone networks.

How does VoIP work?

Voice over IP uses Internet Protocol, an essential building block of the internet. IP telephony is a massive innovation from the century-old telecommunications system.

For phone calls, the conversation is exchanged using small data packets. The internet can send these data packets around the world in less than a second. For internet telephony, these packets travel between your phone and a VoIP provider.

A VoIP phone system facilitates calls between other phones or over to another telephone company. It also provides other useful functions like voicemail, call forwarding, call recording, and more.

In four steps, here's how VoIP works.

1. Your phone connects to your switch or router in your Local Area Network (LAN).
2. When you dial a telephone number, your IP phone tells your VoIP service provider to call the other party.
3. Your VoIP service establishes the call and exchanges data packets from your IP phone.
4. Your VoIP phone converts these digital signals back into the sound you can hear.

Voice over Internet Protocol bypasses the telephone company entirely. Wherever you have a broadband internet connection, you can use VoIP. It’s a significant upgrade from an analog phone system.

Benefits of VoIP

• Lower cost - Many consumers and businesses alike have realized substantial cost savings and lowered their phone bills by over 60%.
• High-quality sound - There's a noticeable difference in the call quality, so the audio isn't muffled or fuzzy.
• Advanced features - Leverage premium features to run your company such as auto attendants, call recording, and call queues. They're often included with business phone service plans.
• Remote-ready - Use your phone service wherever you work. No technical setup is necessary if you work from home.
• Call anyone worldwide - International long distance rates are as low as $0.04 per minute to call Mexico or $0.01 to reach the United Kingdom.

Issues in VoIP

• Needs a high-speed internet connection - VoIP doesn't work well on dial-up or satellite-based internet connections. You'll need at least 100 kbps (0.1 Mbps) per phone line.
• Emergency services limitations - In the unlikely event you need to call 911 from your VoIP phone, you need to tell the operator your actual location. Voice over IP systems default to sending your company's mailing address to public safety operators.
• Makes analog phones obsolete - Voice over IP uses new technology that doesn't rely on analog signals. You'll likely want to upgrade outdated phone handsets. Read our advice later to find out how you can get a free VoIP phone.
• Jitter - Jitter causes pieces of your VoIP phone conversation to become jumbled, out of order, or outright missing, causing essential parts of a call to disappear or become impossible to understand.
• Echo - Phone echoing causes voices to repeat at varying intervals and volume levels while on a call, making it difficult to follow the conversation.
• Devices that won’t make calls - Sometimes, your VoIP platform may not allow you to make outbound calls, either by failing to connect or by displaying an “X” on the screen/interface.
• Choppy audio - Choppy voice and audio mean that, although the call isn’t completely disconnected, certain words are dropped and voices keep cutting in and out.
• No sound once a call connects - In some cases, you may have no issue with connecting calls, but may not be able to hear anything once the calls have been successfully connected.
• Dropped calls - calls that suddenly end in the middle of a conversation without warning — are an enormous source of frustration for both employees and clients.
• Missing phone calls because devices don’t ring - Whether you’re waiting on a call back from a coworker or a client, if your phone sends your calls straight to voicemail instead of ringing, these missed calls can cause serious delays in productivity — not to mention potential lost revenue.

 https://getvoip.com/blog/2020/12/17/common-voip-problems/

VoLTE 

• VoLTE stands for Voice over Long-term Evolution. 
• Utilizing the IMS (IP Multimedia Subsystem) technology, it is a specific type of VoIP service designed into the LTE standard, which enables users to make voice calls while simultaneously using data network LTE. 
• Simply put, VoLTE ( voice over LTE) delivers the voice service as data flows within the LTE data bearer and enables high-speed wireless communications for mobile phones and other data terminals.

The Main Differences between VoLTE and VoIP

• The Basics

VoIP sends the packets (the actual voice digitized to data) over the Internet from the sender to the receiver. The packet is treated like any other type of data packets, such as web traffic or video streaming, when sent over the public Internet. But the voice packet doesn’t have any special priority over any other packet, which can affect the quality of the call. This is one of the major differences between VoIP and VoLTE. In a VoLTE network, packets are given special priority. They have a quality of service capability built into them that results in much higher-quality phone calls.

• Quality of Service: the fundamental difference

The fundamental difference of VoLTE compared to VoIP is that VoLTE requires a QoS component. Voice packets for VoIP get sent along with Internet nodes and are treated no differently than any other data. While the VoLTE uses IMS and a separate radio frequency to help maintain the quality of the VoLTE transmission. QoS seeks to control jitter, provides dedicated bandwidth, seeks network priority, and also improves performance by addressing latency, error rate and uptime problems.

• High Definition (HD) Voice

VoLTE can also support High Definition Voice. LTE networks encode directly the wideband audio necessary to carry the HD Voice. The IMS framework lets VoLTE transmit the HD Voice.

Theoretically, the quality of VoLTE calls compared to regular VoIP calls is better. Practically, however, you can only enjoy HD Voice when using an HD Voice device at both ends. If one device does not have HD capability, the voice quality for the caller and receiver will not have high definition sound.

• Technology

The essential difference between VoIP and VoLTE is the technology it uses. VoLTE is specially designed for 4G LTE networks. VoIP uses both 3G and 4G equally well. Some of the newer smartphone technologies, like the iPhone 6, are built to take advantage of VoLTE technology.

Why VoLTE Matters

1. The quality and speed of VoLTE calls greatly exceed the existing 3G and 4G voice calls.
2. VoLTE calls have been rated higher quality than high-definition Skype even over a congested or loaded VoLTE network.
3. A VoLTE call uses fewer resources on both a handset and over the network, offering longer battery life and a more efficient network for the mobile resulting in longer battery life for end users and a more efficient network for mobile operators.
4. More exclusive benefits VoLTE brings to enterprise.

VoLTE technology carries high expectations among network operators and consumers that it will be leaps and bounds ahead of what we have today in terms of call quality and resource efficiency. It will take some time before the full potential of VoLTE is achieved, however, as the technology has not been rolled out all over the world for all people to make VoLTE-to-VoLTE calls with each other, it’s still difficult to measure and appreciate the full impact that VoLTE will provide.

 VPN

• VPN stands for "Virtual Private Network" and describes the opportunity to establish a protected network connection when using public networks. 
• VPNs encrypt your internet traffic and disguise your online identity. This makes it more difficult for third parties to track your activities online and steal data. The encryption takes place in real time.

A VPN creates a secure connection between you and the internet. When you connect to the internet through a VPN, all your data traffic is sent through an encrypted virtual tunnel. This has multiple advantages:

• You’ll be more anonymous on the internet: your IP address and location won’t be visible to just anyone anymore.
• You’ll be safer on the internet: the encrypted tunnel will keep away hackers and cybercriminals and your device won’t be as vulnerable to attacks.
• You’ll be more free on the internet: by using different IP addresses, you’ll be able to access websites and online services that would otherwise be blocked.

 

How does a VPN work?

A VPN hides your IP address by letting the network redirect it through a specially configured remote server run by a VPN host. This means that if you surf online with a VPN, the VPN server becomes the source of your data. This means your Internet Service Provider (ISP) and other third parties cannot see which websites you visit or what data you send and receive online. A VPN works like a filter that turns all your data into "gibberish". Even if someone were to get their hands on your data, it would be useless.

 

What are the benefits of a VPN connection?

A VPN connection disguises your data traffic online and protects it from external access. Unencrypted data can be viewed by anyone who has network access and wants to see it. With a VPN, hackers and cyber criminals can’t decipher this data.

Secure encryption: To read the data, you need an encryption key . Without one, it would take millions of years for a computer to decipher the code in the event of a brute force attack . With the help of a VPN, your online activities are hidden even on public networks.

Disguising your whereabouts : VPN servers essentially act as your proxies on the internet. Because the demographic location data comes from a server in another country, your actual location cannot be determined. In addition, most VPN services do not store logs of your activities. Some providers, on the other hand, record your behavior, but do not pass this information on to third parties. This means that any potential record of your user behavior remains permanently hidden.

Access to regional content: Regional web content is not always accessible from everywhere. Services and websites often contain content that can only be accessed from certain parts of the world. Standard connections use local servers in the country to determine your location. This means that you cannot access content at home while traveling, and you cannot access international content from home. With VPN location spoofing , you can switch to a server to another country and effectively “change” your location.

Secure data transfer: If you work remotely, you may need to access important files on your company’s network. For security reasons, this kind of information requires a secure connection. To gain access to the network, a VPN connection is often required. VPN services connect to private servers and use encryption methods to reduce the risk of data leakage.

You should rely on your VPN to perform one or more tasks. The VPN itself should also be protected against compromise. These are the features you should expect from a comprehensive VPN solution:

• Encryption of your IP address: The primary job of a VPN is to hide your IP address from your ISP and other third parties. This allows you to send and receive information online without the risk of anyone but you and the VPN provider seeing it.
• Encryption of protocols: A VPN should also prevent you from leaving traces, for example, in the form of your internet history, search history and cookies. The encryption of cookies is especially important because it prevents third parties from gaining access to confidential information such as personal data, financial information and other content on websites.
• Kill switch: If your VPN connection is suddenly interrupted, your secure connection will also be interrupted. A good VPN can detect this sudden downtime and terminate preselected programs, reducing the likelihood that data is compromised.
• Two-factor authentication: By using a variety of authentication methods, a strong VPN checks everyone who tries to log in. For example, you might be prompted to enter a password, after which a code is sent to your mobile device. This makes it difficult for uninvited third parties to access your secure connection.

 

 

What kind of VPNs are there?

There are many different types of VPNs, but you should definitely be familiar with the three main types:

SSL VPN

Often not all employees of a company have access to a company laptop they can use to work from home. During the corona crisis in Spring 2020, many companies faced the problem of not having enough equipment for their employees. In such cases, use of a private device (PC, laptop, tablet, mobile phone) is often resorted to. In this case, companies fall back on an SSL-VPN solution, which is usually implemented via a corresponding hardware box.

The prerequisite is usually an HTML-5-capable browser, which is used to call up the company's login page. HTML-5 capable browsers are available for virtually any operating system. Access is guarded with a username and password.

Site-to-site VPN

A site-to-site VPN is essentially a private network designed to hide private intranets and allow users of these secure networks to access each other's resources.

A site-to-site VPN is useful if you have multiple locations in your company, each with its own local area network (LAN) connected to the WAN (Wide Area Network). Site-to-site VPNs are also useful if you have two separate intranets between which you want to send files without users from one intranet explicitly accessing the other.

Site-to-site VPNs are mainly used in large companies. They are complex to implement and do not offer the same flexibility as SSL VPNs. However, they are the most effective way to ensure communication within and between large departments.

Client-to-Server VPN

Connecting via a VPN client can be imagined as if you were connecting your home PC to the company with an extension cable. Employees can dial into the company network from their home office via the secure connection and act as if they were sitting in the office. However, a VPN client must first be installed and configured on the computer.

This involves the user not being connected to the internet via his own ISP, but establishing a direct connection through his/her VPN provider. This essentially shortens the tunnel phase of the VPN journey. Instead of using the VPN to create an encryption tunnel to disguise the existing internet connection, the VPN can automatically encrypt the data before it is made available to the user.

This is an increasingly common form of VPN, which is particularly useful for providers of insecure public WLAN. It prevents third parties from accessing and compromising the network connection and encrypts data all the way to the provider. It also prevents ISPs from accessing data that, for whatever reason, remains unencrypted and bypasses any restrictions on the user's internet access (for instance, if the government of that country restricts internet access).

The advantage of this type of VPN access is greater efficiency and universal access to company resources. Provided an appropriate telephone system is available, the employee can, for example, connect to the system with a headset and act as if he/she were at their company workplace. For example, customers of the company cannot even tell whether the employee is at work in the company or in their home office.

https://www.kaspersky.com/resource-center/definitions/what-is-a-vpn 

https://vpnoverview.com/vpn-information/what-is-a-vpn/