At one point, telephone service was voice, email/instant messaging was words and the two did not intermingle. Now the two have converged and the world of communication is poised to explode in new and exciting ways.
Convergent Of Voice And Messaging
Instant messaging, one of the most vital and user friendly portions of your PC, will now be offering a new adaptation of VoIP through their own services. Known as Voice Over Instant Messaging, or VoIM, this new version of the technology looks to take advantage of the over 860 million account holders. This number is expected to grow to a billion by the end of the coming year, with VoIP reaching a majority of those customers in that same time period as well.
The analysts say that VoIP has not changed the use of instant messaging, but that VoIM may well have some serious impact on voice over Internet. VoIM is not totally new of course, the major instant messaging services have provided at least some form of voice connectivity – with some serious limitation, including less than stellar quality of service.
Voice Message Coder-Decoder
VoIP and VoIM are both going to improve with time, especially as more customers sign up for the services and demand improvements. Voice quality must be made equivalent to landline phones to stay competitive. Besides customer demand for better service, one of the major reasons for vast improvements is related to codec.
For the techno-illiterate, a codec is a computer program, or a device that will encode or in some cases decode a digital data stream or signal. There are many types of codec, each with separate uses and applications. Codec all have some limitations, but many can be more than adequate for their usage in the right arena. Those codec that are being used for cell phone calls for instance must have lower latency rates so that calls are not distorted or of such poor quality that they cannot be tolerated.
VoIM Service Providers
Regardless of what Internet service provider you use, or which messenger you have been plugging along with in recent months, the experts agree that almost every user will at least try voice over instant messenger once. Many will do it simply for the thrill of using a cutting edge technology, while others will do it to keep up with techno-trends and to be able to keep up with water cooler techno-talk. Will every customer that tries VoIM keep it up and use it on the daily basis? The answer is No – of course NOT. Even the service providers are not even expecting such a thing to happen.
Depending on what type of VoIP enabled phone is being used by the customer, and which codec is used by the provider, ratings of the call quality can range from “okay” to “comparable to the traditional landline phone”. The theory about whether or not VoIM is truly the next big thing or not is also up for debate – some industry insiders say that it is, while some are not so sure. They all agree that VoIP and by default, VOIM, will not be fading off into the sunset anytime soon, but the question of which will really take the top spot is still a question mark.
Open Platform For VoIM
What they do hope is that of every ten customers that do give it a try, two or three stick around and become loyal VoIM users. As long as the quality continues to improve and the pricing remains stable and reasonable, this new technology will remain on the lips of its customers.
VoIM will probably seek out a partnership with another, outside source for lines other equipment, and although that relationship has not been solidified as of yet, a likely contender for this could be a bundled service provider or a traditional phone company.