June 25th, 2014
With all of the communication apps out there to choose from, what certain features do you look for? Perhaps a few years ago it was message-sharing capabilities, but now more and more of these communication tools are reverting back to voice communication and improving the user-experience with voice-calling. Some would say this is because voice-calling is growing again; despite being able to share personal messages containing graphics, videos, sounds, and gifs, people still have the need to directly interact with people by actually speaking with one another.
Messaging apps such as Viber and WeChat have addressed this need and provide voice-calling through VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol. Little may you know though, social media apps such as Facebook are now doing the same thing through their own messaging apps. Facebook Messenger is available to iOS , Android and Windows Phone users. Users can make phone calls to friends for free via Wi-Fi or cellular data.
VoIP is a method for taking analog audio signals, like the kind you hear when you talk on the phone, and turning them into digital data that can be transmitted over the Internet. Advantages of this are:
- VoIP can turn a standard Internet connection into a way to place free phone calls.y using the free VoIP software that is available to make Internet phone calls, you’re bypassing the phone company (and their charges) entirely. This means not only are you not using your minutes, but also you can call people from other countries completely free.
- Call quality is more clear!
- If you lose connection with someone, unlike through a normal data connection, you will be automatically reconnected once you are back in Internet service range.
This feature has been added to Facebook’s app for iPhone and carried over to Messenger for Android for 25 countries so far. VoiP is what will soon be considered standard practice for phone call communication, so we all may as well jump on board with the technology now!
Hope you enjoyed our TIP of the week.
