Digital Lexicon Hub

Technology that carries voice calls as data packets over IP networks such as the internet instead of traditional circuit-switched phone lines.

VoIP lets businesses run phone systems as cloud services with per-user pricing, remote softphones, call recording and CRM integration, and it is the basis for routing calls to AI voice agents.

A 15-person agency ports its main number to a cloud VoIP provider, gives staff softphone apps, routes business-hours calls to a sales queue, and logs every call to the CRM through the provider's API.

Call quality depends on bandwidth, latency, jitter and packet loss, and service can stop during a power or internet outage. Emergency calls need an up-to-date registered address, and weak SIP credentials expose accounts to toll fraud.

VoIP digitizes speech with a codec, splits it into packets and sends them over IP, typically using RTP for the media stream. Signaling protocols such as SIP, defined in IETF RFC 3261, create, modify and end sessions through user agents, proxy servers and registrars. Gateways connect calls to the public telephone network, and many providers expose an Application Programming Interface (API) for routing, recording and AI Agent integration.