What the heck is VoIP? An expert explains.

If you’ve never heard of VoIP, don’t panic. It’s not an acronym people usually carry in their everyday vocabulary. But here’s the fun twist: You’re probably using it already.

VoIP — or oice ver nternet rotocol — is just a fancy name for the FaceTimes, Whatsapps, and Zooms of the world (aka your best friends during quarantine). It is generally used to refer to a method of transmitting voice and multimedia communication via data packet from one user to another. 

That’s unlike regular landline or cellphone calls, Reuben Yonatan, founder of cloud communication advising service GetVoIP, told me. Whereas those calls are often carried out by satellite, cell, or landline towers via copper wire and switchboards, VoIP calls rely on the internet. 

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But VoIP isn’t just for phone calls, Yonatan added. “It’s any sort of data packet you can send through the internet. It could be anything in the form of a voicemail; it could be a message; it could be a digital fax, like a PDF; it could be a video call.”

Often, VoIP providers offer software and apps that can do multiple — sometimes all — of those things. And they do it for cheap, which makes their services increasingly popular among everyday consumers and businesses. But more on that later. 

First, some background

There are generally two types of VoIP, Yonatan said: There are those geared toward the everyday consumer, then there are the ones intended for business use. 

Consumer VoIPs generally cover features like messaging, as well as voice and video calling; anyone who has used FaceTime, Facebook Messenger, Whatsapp, WeChat, and the like are already familiar with the service to some degree.

VoIPs for businesses, on the other hand, usually come with more advanced features like screen-sharing, HD voice, call recording, enhanced caller ID, and call forwarding. Think of companies like Zoom and Ring Central. 

But the line between the two are starting to blur. Ever since the coronavirus pandemic forced people to stay at home, business products like Zoom have been gaining traction from everyday consumers. Overnight, it’s become a host for college lectures, blind dates, workout sessions, church services — even an inspiration for memes. 

“I don’t think that their intended purpose was for my kids to be able to connect with their grandparents; their intended purpose was to become a business product,” Yonatan said. “They kind of became this go-to social media platform of some sort.”

Yonatan said Zoom’s popularity grew in part because it is well-designed, comprehensive, and straight-forward. But part of it also has to do with the fact that the platform offers a highly competitive service via a cost-free model that allows users to access relatively advanced f