Skype Internet Telephony

The latest trend in VOIP today is Skype, a name which has now become a synonym for Internet telephony. For those who haven’t heard about Skype yet we would like to give a brief intro of this next generation telephony which is making headlines everyday.

Skype is a wireless calling providing software which lets you call anywhere in the world for free and sometime through credit points. Skype telephony is now famous in all over the world as it provides free connectivity between two different places. Skype is now almost ubiquitous in every country. This has made Internet telephony something beyond the computer.

The reason behind the rapid success of Skype can be the simplest way to use it. Here you don’t need to install any new software and there isn’t any fear of virus also. This system is same as any other messenger that you use everyday. All you need is to download the free Skype download which is easily available in the internet. You can download the Skype software from the main website and it takes just few minutes to download. Once the download is finish, Skype is ready for your use. And this gives you the freedom to call anywhere anytime and that’s also for free.

Skype has both free and paid services. The free service and the paid service both are equally popular. Skype has gained momentum in its popularity since its inception. The popular usage of Skype has made people more interested in this internet telephony. It’s not only about the telephony but Skype is famous for its features which gives the users a variety of options while talking. Some of the most notable features are the free voice, video conferencing, instant messaging and sending file options. Overall it can be said that Skype is a messenger with a crystal clear calling facility. Skype has another facility which attracts more users to log in to Skype. The reason is its ability to use peer to peer technology to take care of the normal firewall and networking problems. Not all had tried to make software which can make talking as popular as Skype did. So undoubtedly it was quite obvious for Skype to be popular among the users.

It’s not only about the calling facilities but Skype provides some hardware options for your system which makes it more desirable by the users. You get caller ID information is masked by the system when you make a Skype call from your PC or phone. This is a major difference between the Skype and VoIP clients. Skype operates in a new advanced model while the regular VoIPs still follow the traditional server-client model. You neither need a new set up to establish the Skype nor you need any costly centralized infrastructure to have Skype. If you have a regular internet connection then you can have access to Skype at anywhere, anytime. Hence Skype has taken a leap ahead of the regular internet telephony and is keeping up the pace to become the most sought after wireless calling provider.

Some of the basic characteristics of Skype are that it routes calls through Skype peers through the network to make the use of the software easier than the regular networking available. It can also make it easy to use the Symmetric NATs and firewalls, which gives a complete ease of use to the Skype users. But, this facility has its own problems. If you are connecting to the internet without NAT then it might happen that your computer and network bandwidth may be used to divert others user’s calls to your system.

Skype has a closed source code and the protocol used by the company is also not standardized. Skype is available and compatible with various operating systems. It’s specially designed for complete ease in every possible operating system. If you are a Windows user then you can have an interface which is developed in Pascal using Delphi and for Linux users it’s written in C++ with Qt. for all the Apple users the Mac OS X version is made in Objective-C with Cocoa. Many of the clients use a different version of programming which is called the Internet Direct; it’s an open source socket communication library.

Skype has undergone several changes in last few years. Skype was introduced with the Skype 3.0 Beta version, which was run on a Windows operating system. It’s seen that Skype accesses the hard disk numerous times in every minute which can be verified through observation of the hard disk drive’s activity LED. Skype provides various options for the users to make the usage more interesting. Skype also accepts thousands of connections but it’s said and believed that very soon Skype will limit itself to a certain amount for upload and download.

Talking about the security of this software, Skype claims to have the most contemporary security system. The proprietary session establishment protocol used by Skype is quite efficient and prevents any kind of insecurity or unwanted attacks. Skype software is not self certifying which needs to connect through certain login provided by Skype for the users. This provides the information access to the users.

Presently Skype provides multiple concurrent logins to users. But this can easily be accessed by any attacker. If any attacker finds out your login password, then the attacker can easily log in the account and change the status to hidden which enables the attacker to check all the information and chats performed by the user.
Being calling software Skype is a boon for long distance callers. You get free services and which are paid; they also charge you a less amount. So, it’s quite obvious that you need to be more particular while using this software. Moreover, Skype is a complete revolution in VoIP telephony.

Wi-Fi Telephony

Wi-Fi telephony is gradually picking the momentum in businesses. Now people are giving it more space than ever before. It isn’t long since this concept came to market. It was first introduces in the year 1999. More and more Wi-Fi enabled devices are now available in the market which is creating frenzy around the users of Wi-Fi mobile enterprise telephony. This concept brought with it a lot of new promises like how these devices can drive company users to get into the corporate Wi-Fi network. This system has numerous advantages including the high cost savings and several other features which are provided by the integration with the business IP system telephony. Wi-Fi telephony is now the most talked telephonic system. A research shows a growth rate of nearly 200 percent in coming five years. But, the Wi-Fi telephony is not yet a runner in the mainstream and it needs a lot of effort to bring Wi-Fi to the mainstream. There are various challenges in making a complete Wi-Fi telephony system. The most important are the voice quality and functionality. If you are an IT manager then your Wi-Fi telephony should be reliable, scalable, interoperable and secure.

If you are planning to have a Wi-Fi telephony system in the company then you need to check the above details first that your telephony should be reliable and secure. Once you deploy the Wi-Fi telephony in your enterprise then you save a lot of expenditure and this can help you get connected quite easily. Hence, you need to be extra cautious while choosing your Wi-Fi connection and the telephony system.

Enterprise Wi-Fi network technology has seen lot of changes in past few years and it still needs to implement a lot of changes. There should be some upgraded voice applications which should be considered before trying the Wi-Fi telephony. The challenges of Wi-Fi telephony should be tackled in both the network terminal ends of the application. Wi-Fi telephony are visible for quite some time but there use is concentrated in some particular industries like healthcare, retail stores and manufacturing plants. With the advent of the latest Wi-Fi enabled phoning devices like the smartphones and PDAs many people opt for these devices rather than a total Wi-Fi telephony networking.

Network Challenges

Today the VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) telephony is becoming quite famous. This IP phoning is gradually becoming the main stream phoning service because of its cost effectiveness and fast reach. The quality and the services both are quite good in these services. If you have a well designed IP network then it can easily support your voice applications. These networks are secure, quality driven and reliable. The voice quality of these phones is certainly infallible. These VoIPs are a challenge to the Wi-Fi telephony system. There are various issues involved in a Wi-Fi networking. Sometimes you get lower band width in your Wi-Fi networking than the general wired networking. Another aspect is the mobility factor as the mobility of the Wi-Fi can be sometimes little complicated.

With the regular wired IP telephony, bandwidth is not at an issue as every enterprise networks have at least 10 Mbps of dedicated bandwidth in their standardized on switched Ethernet. This much bandwidth is more than enough for a single telephone set. But, in Wi-Fi connection, your single connection is shared by various wireless users through an access point. Your Wi-Fi access points can operate in a minimum 1 Mbps data rate and the standard designing of any enterprise is between 11 and 54 Mbps. This data rate is quite, for that mater, more than required for an enterprise.

Roaming is the most significant variation between the wired IP telephony and the Wi-Fi telephony. If you will have Wi-Fi then you are free to roam. It gives you the freedom to roam during your call. But for normal wired telephony, which is fixed lines, roaming is not an issue at all. The Wi-Fi users need to be extra cautious while maintaining a telephone call. Wired connections are fixed so there is a minimal chance of the connection failure but in case of Wi-Fi, this becomes a vital issue. If you are having a Wi-Fi connection then it might sometimes irritate you with the disturbances.

Wi-Fi systems need to overcome a lot of network challenges. We are still not sure whether Wi-Fi networks can support the voice applications as infallibly as the VoIPs. One needs to have a better voice-optimization for better wireless network telephony. You need to have a right equipment and implementation to have a well-established Wi-Fi telephony. Today you can see various Wi-Fi devices in the market and for large enterprises a lot of new equipments are being designed everyday. More vendors are now busy in various innovations to bring products which are designed for infallible telephony applications. So, it is not quite early say that in near future enterprise Wi-Fi deployments will be designed as voice ready devices.

Device Challenges

Having a good networking doesn’t entitle you a smooth and undisturbed service. This can be called the first half of the story and the second and final part is the device. It is like the vehicle and road. If you have a good vehicle but a poor road then you will have problem driving and vice versa. You need to have a Wi-Fi device which should support your Wi-Fi telephony system. You need to see various aspects of devices before choosing for your Wi-Fi telephony. First is the voice quality of the device. It should have various functionalities. I have seen the Wi-Fi affecting the battery life of the device; hence you should make sure that your device has a better battery life. Wi-Fi gives you the freedom of roaming hence you should choose a handset which has a good size and weight so that it would be easy for your to use it.

There are various challenges which involve your Wi-Fi telephony connection. But, you need to find out the exact solutions for every challenge. Once you get the right designed connection you can use the freedom of Wi-Fi telephony.

Selecting a Wi-Fi Antenna for you

You have a Wi-Fi system which works as you desire but still you feel like having little more range for your Wi-Fi. What will you do? Change your Wi-Fi or try to search an alternative solution? I think searching an alternative solution is a good idea. So, here you can use an antenna for extending the range of your Wi-Fi. The most important thing is choosing an antenna for increasing the range of your Wi-Fi. But, there are various antennas available in market you need to choose the most suitable antenna as per your requirements. You might feel this is the most complex work to do, to choose an appropriate antenna. We will make this much easy for you. In this article you can get every trifling detail about the Wi-Fi antenna.

We will start with a little discussion about this Wi-Fi antenna. You all know that Wi-Fi is like the radio which is used for computers. You can install an external antenna to increase the range of your Wi-Fi. You can consider this antenna as the speaker system of your Wi-Fi card. It works with the simple rule, the bigger the better. If you use bigger antenna you get better Wi-Fi range.

Directional Antennas

Directional antennas are widely used for point-to-point and often for Multi-Point systems. This antenna depends on the setup of the connection. This antenna is apt for those who shift from one location to another. This antenna can provide you better range between two points. Directional antennas are Backfires, Yagi, Panel and dish antennas.

Base Antenna

The base antennas are the omni directional antennas. These are used for point-to-multi-point systems. This is a dedicated antenna which distributes signal to other computers. You can connect multiple devices through your omni directional antenna. It’s not all about computers but you can connect your printers and other devices like PDAs can be connected through this antenna. Some of the typical omni directional antennas are Vertical Omnis, Small Desktops, Ceiling Domes, Mobile vertical and Rubber duck antennas.

Point-to-Point

Point-to-Point usually involves two different points in a wireless connection. This is basically the sharing between the two points, which can be a house, building or anything. But, here involves an exception. If the Wi-Fi owner wants to send the signal to a distant location where there are multiple systems then it will use a directional antenna to send point-to-multi-point connection. Here the sender system has to be sharp and should be using a directional antenna. These antennas help in distributing point-to-multi-point wireless signal.

Point to Multi-Point

Point to Multi-Point is the most commonly used Wi-Fi sharing. You can find this is your office, home and various places. This system is usually to share the WLAN (Wireless Local Area Network) or Internet Connection. You can also share WAP (Wireless Access Point) through this. WAP is now seen in many airports, coffee shops and stations. Now getting a WAP connection isn’t difficult at all, as you can find them in many places. WAP gives you the freedom to access Internet anywhere. All you need is a Notebook and you are easily connected with the rest of the world.

Range

Range is the most vital part of any wireless signal. Your range of the signal depends on various factors like the power output of your wireless card or router, the receive strength of the wireless card. Many a times the things which fall between the paths of the wireless connection also lower the range of the signal. These are basically the buildings, trees and other hindrances. Believe me there are numerous factors which influence the range of your wireless connection so discussing it without the proper description of the area is little difficult. Hence, always prefer an antenna which is more powerful and which will be able to catch even minimal signals.

Most of the times we are asked to suggest the best Wi-Fi antenna, but suggesting this can be an easy task if we know exactly for what purpose you want else it’s quite difficult to tell about any particular antenna. If you have a strong signal with less noise then your wireless card can perform infallibly with an antenna else a good antenna can also show poor performance. We will now discuss some of the important directional antennas which we had mentioned earlier.

Home Antenna

Home antennas are most easily available antennas. These are cheap, easy to install and widely used. In most cases you need a single antenna for the connection. You should check the connection using a single antenna. This can give you an idea of the signal strength and range.

Office

Offices involve big networks hence the antenna used in office should have strength to support the systems. If you want a wireless office then you need to have a strong wireless card and install the wireless router software and connect the router with your connection. But, this can be little difficult for huge offices with multi storey buildings.

Mobile Wi-Fi Antenna

This is a boon for frequent travelers. You can have a mobile Wi-Fi antenna in your car to access Internet at any place. Now that most of the gas stations and truck-stops are fully Wi-Fi enabled, how can you stay behind?

Yagi Antenna

This is basically a radio antenna which is very directional and is mostly used for extending the range to multi-point system. The best part of these antennas is there signal strength, if you have these antennas in a perfect set up then they can send signal to larger distances.

With the advent of Internet more and more people tried to have this connectivity easily available. And the invention of wireless computer networking gave wings to these people’s desire. Now they have a system through which they can access Internet easily and rapidly. It is a fact that wireless networking led many people to search for methods to share the Internet connectivity. Wireless computer networking can be used both in good and bad way, let’s talk about the worse first. Many users knowingly sat up unsecured access points for network, through which they can easily access the Internet without even the consent of the owner. But, this is definitely a mischief. There are other ways also through which you can easily access the Internet through a wireless computer networking. We will further discuss those ways which can be applied to access safe and fast Internet from a wireless computer networking.

What I can suggest, the safest way to share is to use a totally separate wireless access point which will be just for sharing. Then you should put it on a separate subnet. You can throttle the bandwidth to thwart hogs from getting into your connection. For better and sharp results you can simply throw that in a DHCP server. There isn’t any harm in having a safe connection. Hence, you need to be extra cautious in keeping your connection. There is another important safety click that is hidden in your system that is the Firewall. Use Firewall to prevent your connection from all the unwanted freeloader connections. Now you can also get some cheap routers which can help you detect and protect the signals.

Wireless Network

If you can share a bandwidth signal then it’s certainly not a bad thing. Wi-Fi is freely available for your use and if you utilize it then there isn’t any harm in it. But, if you are among those people then it’s better for you to toggle your brain to get some better strategies to make it better. This gave birth to the ideas like OLSR, the Optimized Link State Routing protocol. OLSR is an efficient protocol that easily searches other wireless networks and sets the routing table automatically and in this way creates a mobile network. This is a most widely used protocol trusted by many users. This tiny protocol works diligently for your CPU cycles. There are various such protocols which you would have heard or come across. Freifunk Firmware is another embedded router which works in various systems. This works like various similar routers which we had talked in about introduction paragraphs. This router provides the most easy user experience. This router is user friendly and gives maximum ease of use. But, if you have a Linux OS which is designed for the WRT54G-type wireless routers, then you should include something like the OLSR. Here we are talking about the wireless network which is mostly useful in places which have community wireless projects. These community wireless projects are any time better than the Municipal wireless projects. Believe me Municipal wireless projects are only good on paper; they are not mesh but a perfect mess. And this creates problems for the Wi-Fi also as there come a lot of obstacles to run a Wi-Fi. Even if you have a plain area there will be lots of trees, hills so even if you have a repeater in every block your connection will be disturbed by these obstacles. Not only these obstacles are a problem for a Wi-Fi but you also come across interferences and reflections between your signals. It’s really difficult to have an undisturbed signal in this scenario.

Hence, there are still remains some space for the grassroots efforts to have a sharing bandwidth. It’s not that you always need a lot of money to get this kind of connection but there are also many cheap tools which can provide you similar results. One of them is the Meraki repeaters; these are the cheap little repeaters which are nothing but plug-n-play devices. Many users who use Meraki say that these repeaters can be used in a multiple form. All you need to connect one repeater with your Internet and the rest of them will work flawlessly as simple repeaters. These repeaters are available as indoor and outdoor repeaters. Through Meraki you can monitor your network, as this repeater provides a Web-based Dashboard which helps you in monitoring the network. This repeater has another unique quality as it includes the billing software also. The Dashboard is hosted by the Miraki on its server. This gives you an opportunity to charge or make it free. It will work free for free networks and will charge some percentage if you are charging for your services.

Using a WISP

There are various WirelessISPs(WISP) which provide you better solution for your connection. It’s very difficult to decide a single WISP for all the systems as the connections are quite different. If you have a reliable DSL then you can have better service but if you have hanged up with those age old dial ups then you might suffer a hard time because of it. Now is the question of choosing a gear. You can easily get a high powered wireless gear for your required strength. One of those gears is the Ubiquiti wireless gears. These high powered wireless interfaces are based on Atheros radios. And the most pleasing part is these gears are fully compatible with Linux because of the MadWiFi driver project. For this you can get a wireless adapter purchased separately and you can build stout boxes or you can also get a separate access point. These all come with firmware which are friendly to install your own firmware.

Know Your Wi-Fi

You must have heard about Wi-Fi and if I am correct then, you must be asking why on earth I am asking this question. Believe me my intention is not to test your knowledge neither to check your IQ. But, this is a fact that many a times we use certain devices, products and words just because we know how to use it and we don’t even try to understand how this little device helps us. Again, what is the need to understand if something is working well then its well for you? Is this what you are thinking then think again? Then it’s time for you’re to think again over it because all electronic devices are not always that obedient and you might need to check them time to time and here nothing but your knowledge matters. And as you have come to this site, it shows you are interested in knowing about this particular magical device. So, now we will talk about the device called Wi-Fi, a device which always made your life easy. This is the device which is responsible for giving you a complete wireless experience. Let’s start with the basics of this intelligent device which is both efficient and effective.

If you have visited a coffee shop, airport or a hotel recently then you are in the network of an invisible connection. This is the Wi-Fi networking. Today, many people use wireless networking which is also called Wi-Fi or 802.11 networking. Wi-Fi connection helps you connect to the Internet without any wire. Now most of the campuses, universities are becoming fully Wi-Fi enabled where the students can access the Internet anywhere within the campus. Wi-Fi is also visible in homes and many cities are also having Wi-Fi networking to provide cheap and wireless Internet connection. Wireless networking is now spreading its wing to all kind of sectors. Whether it’s a small coffee house or a big enterprise, you can easily get a Wi-Fi connection in all these places. I feel it is not early to say that these wireless connections will soon be so widespread that one can browse the Internet at anytime and anyplace without using any wire.

These Wi-Fi connections are quite beneficial as these are inexpensive and are quite easy to install. Wi-Fi is an invisible form of connection. It’s really difficult to find which place has a Wi-Fi connection unless you start your laptop. Wi-Fi connections are gradually becoming ubiquitous now. In this article we will further look into the deeper mechanism of the Wi-Fi and the basic structure of the Wi-Fi.

The System

Let us start with the few basics of the Wi-Fi connection. Wi-Fi works in the same pattern and system like the cell phones, televisions and radio. Wi-Fi uses simple radio waves to communicate across the wireless network. It uses a two-way radio communication. You need to have a wireless adapter and an antenna to create a wireless connection. The computer adapter translates the data into the radio signal and after this the signal is transmitted through the antenna. Then this signal travels through the wireless router and it decodes the signal. Then the information is sent to the Internet using a wired Ethernet connection. This is a two way process which works similarly in reverse where the router receives information from the Internet, translates it into a radio signal and then send it to the computers’ wireless adapter.

Wi-Fi uses the same radios for communication as the radios used for general cell phones. These devices are similar to others which transmit and receive radio waves. But there are few differences between the radio transmitter and the Wi-Fi networking. Wi-Fi networking uses more frequency than the cell phone or the radio. This helps in making better data transfer. Wi-Fi is not limited to any particular device rather you can use multiple devices in your Wi-Fi networking. But, in case of radio you are limited to a certain device use.

Networking

The biggest advantage of a Wi-Fi is the ability to free access the Internet. You can use public Wi-Fi hotspots to take advantage of free Internet. You can also set a wireless networking in your home. The foremost thing you need to have is the appropriate wireless gear. Most of the notebook manufacturers are now making laptops with built in wireless transmitter. But, if you don’t have a built in wireless transmitter you can get a wireless adapter which can be plugged in your laptop or PC. You desktop computer can use the USB adapter or you can even have a plug in adapter plugged in your PCI slot inside your desktop case. These adapters often use multiple 802.11 standards.

After the initial installation of your wireless adapter and the drivers for operation you need to check the correctness of your networking. Check whether your computer is showing the activation of a wireless connection or not. Once your computer discovers the existing networks then you can be sure that it has been connected. This means that whenever your computer will be in a Wi-Fi hotspot it will automatically catch the signal. When you will bring the PC or laptop in a Wi-Fi networking, it will automatically detect the network and ask you whether you want to connect to the wireless network or not. All the latest computers are now having the latest version of the wireless connection software and if you have an older computer then you need to install wireless connection installation software to connect to a wireless network.

This is the general summery of the Wi-Fi connection. Wi-Fi networking provides you impeccable Internet connectivity without the hassle of any wiring and this is the best part of this technology. If you have a laptop or computer which is Wi-Fi enabled then believe me you have the freedom to get connected at anytime and anyplace only one clause is there and that is the place should be Wi-Fi enabled, now that’s what I call freedom