Internet Packet and VoIP

Millions of Internet users around the world come across packets every day without even realizing it. You use them when you are reading this article, write an e-mail, make cheap international calls or Google for your favorite actors. The Internet is based on something called a packet. What should ordinary users know about it?

Data shipped over the Internet is divided into small parts (bytes, kilobytes, etc.). Parts of a file ranging between 1,000 – 1,500 bytes are called packets. They have footers and headers which contain information what the packet is about and hot to create a whole file.  

• TCP/IP

The data is carried out through protocol which is necessary to retrieve the address of specific computers. This technology is called Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol, or TCP/IP for short. This technology was contrived about 20 years ago to connect two computers and exchange data. TCP/IP is an essential component of the Internet. It assigns address to each computer, that`s why it`s very easy to map them using HTTP. Without TCP/IP packets won`t be able to transfer data as they won`t find the destination.

• Packets and VoIP

When you send an e-mail to your friends or chat with them the data you want to send is broken into packets before shipping across the Internet. When you make local or international calls

over the Internet the voice data is also converted into packets and sent through Internet protocol. This technology is called VoIP, Voice over IP. We are using scalable and robust system today thank to network pioneers Robert Kahn and Vinton Cerf.

The exact process of how audio or video data is converted into binary one and sent to the recipient is a bit complicated to understand. The only thing users should know about VoIP calls is that they are easy to make, have high quality and can save you a fortune on phone bills.