VoIP is an acronym for Voice over Internet Protocol. A general term for the ability to transmit and deliver voice communications over IP networks such as the Internet or other packet-switched networks. It allows in laymans terms "The process of allowing people to talk through a telephone like device to other people with the same or simular device across the internet.". With the change in the way Telecommunications companies are doing business it is already possible for people to call lan lines from voip as well as normal land lines can call voip phones.

The basic idea behind this technology is to take a spoken voice (analogue) at a location, transfer it to a computer (digital) signal and transmit this signal through a medium, most likely the Internet to another location, then convert it back from a computer signal to a spoken voice at the other location in realtime.

What this means is that, unlike the telephone that most people are used to, it can be used almost anywhere a computer with an internet connection is active. So one can see that Wireless (wifi), Satelite and other over the air internet devices can also be used to "hook up" VoIP systems. The only limiting factor with VoIP, is the bandwidth and quality of the line. Due to the nature of the internet itself, it can become congested just like a road network where too many cars during peak our traffic will slow down the amount of cars that can get through a certain point. So the internet can get jammed and this may lead to line quality degradation. However, for the most part, the line quality is usually excellent and sometimes even better that a normal Telephone line.