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VoIP: Coming Soon to a Desktop Near You
With the explosion of communication services offered
via the Internet these days, it should surprise no one
that "the next big thing" would be
the ability to make phone calls from your PC over the
Internet. With the cost of bandwidth constantly dropping,
VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) promises
greatly reduced long-distance calling rates.
Here's how a VoIP phone call works:
- Your voice is digitized and compressed by the
PC, the local phone company, or by your
Internet Service Provider. Don't worry, you won't
sound like you've just inhaled from a helium balloon.
- Your digital voice is then broken into
separate packets and sent on its merry way, just
like any other data transmitted over the Internet.
- But, since this is the Internet, packets
may get damaged or lost along the way. So, complex methods
are used to figure out what the missing data contained
and to try and fill in the breaks in the transmission.
The technology doesn't exactly put words into your mouth,
but it does try to minimize the effects of the packet
loss by creating sounds to eliminate the gaps.
- At the receiving end, the data packets
are decompressed and reassembled back into your original
voice so the caller on the other end can understand
what you're saying.
Now, just imagine that entire process happening constantly
during the give and take of a conversation, and you'll
get a new appreciation for the simplicity of two tin
cans and some waxed string. But, think of it: the most
redundant network ever devised being used to
route phone calls around the world, almost completely
avoiding the telecommunications monopolies that
tend to keep rates high.
You'll
soon be hearing more about VoIP service from
providers, including Primus, so we'll keep our
subscribers informed as developments occur. VoIP
products will range from consumer to enterprise and
carrier levels, so there will be plenty of information
to sort out.
For more info on carrier-level VoIP, visit http://www.primustel.com/docs/carriers.html
For more info on enterprise-level VoIP, visit http://www.primushost.com/products/voip.html
For more information on how VoIP works, check out
our
Flash
presentation.
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Do
You Have A Limited Advertising Budget?
This is What Your Web Designer Should Be Doing |
Having
a web site that perfectly represents your company will
genuinely aid in selling your products, but what if no
one can find your site? That's an especially good question
if, in lean times such as these, your marketing budget
is limited. What can you do to promote your company's
web presence? Register it with the most popular search
engines, of course.
Whether you're building your web site in-house or contracting
it out, make sure that you, your web design team, or your
consultant follows up the designing of your site by registering
it with the major search engines. From the beginning,
build the site as "search engine friendly"
as possible.
One of the most important things that search engines look
for is key words in the copy of your web pages,
and the closer to the top of the page, the better. What's
a key word? It's a word or phrase that potential
customers are likely to use when looking up your service.
For example, if your company sells "Dr. Fruitloop's
Amazing Atomic Space Widgets", and these widgets
make julienne fries and clean pet stains, you want to
mention that on your home page. Indeed, you then should
have links to one page that extols the virtues and abilities
of the widget to make julienne fries, and another one
that does the same for pet stains.
That way, you get concentrations of appropriate key
words on specific pages that search engines can find
and index. | | When
customers type "widgets that make julienne fries"
or even just "widgets +pet stains"" into
their favorite search engines, your pages are more likely
to come up.
You also want to put those keywords elsewhere in your
HTML. Meta tags, comments, and alt
tags are all good ways to do this. A clear and descriptive
title tag is also a requirement.
Search engines like fresh content and will index pages
more often when they have new information, so don't leave
the same page up for very long. Create a section on your
home page for company news or other information that is
updated on a regular basis.
Some aspects of high rankings are tougher to control.
Some search engines score pages higher that are linked
to from many outside sites. You have to make linking
agreements, or have a very popular and useful page,
to get enough links to have that help.
Finally, you have to actually submit your web site
to the search engines, and not just once but regularly.
This is time consuming, and given that you may not see
results for weeks or months, can be frustrating, but it
will pay off in the end.
There's more that goes into getting ranked highly in a
search engine, but this primer should help.
Useful links:
Search
Engine Watch |
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©
2002 PRIMUS Telecommunications Group |
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