Moving on from the typical phone lines, we have come into the era of VoIP phone services, where you can call any computer or even phones right from your house through the internet! But do you really know how this system works, and why it is so effective?

A VoIP system from your house is basically connected to the computer network, and the network is then connected to a VoIP gateway, which then connects you to the internet. It is basically the entry point and works the same way as the other internet gateways work.

Function
Basically, the VoIP system works by transforming analog voice calls into data packets, sending the packets over broadband computer networks, and translating them back to voice at the other end of the line or call.
What a VoIP gateway does here is to bridge the circuit-switched telephone network into the packet-switched data network. This VoIP gateway allows calls coming from a regular telephone line to be transferred over an IP network to a compatible computer-client terminal point or even bridging back to another regular telephone terminal point. When multiple gateways of such are connected together as an organized web, it creates a virtual integrated network that allows its users to make and receive calls over the multiple IP data networks.

Communication
Various manufacturers make different gateways and sell to the service providers to use in their network lines. Sometimes the question of inter-operability comes in, whereby people might wonder would different gateways work together as one in a network, or would it affect the efficacy of the network? Companies like Motorola and Vonage come out with gateways that work with any other architecture of gateways. Thus there is no place for any worries. Most of the service providers sign agreements with the makers of those gateways for uniformity purposes.
All the gateways basically function the same way. So there is no problem, as to this extent. As long as the gateway operates as below there would not be any inter-operability problems.

1. The VoIP gateway, which is connected to your standard telephone line, takes the voice that comes in and converts it from analog signals to digital signals.

2. The VoIP gateway breaks down the digital format into smaller units known as data packets and is transported through the internet line the same way how data is transmitted to and from your computer.

3. These data packets, just like internet packets, contain all the information on their final destination and also have orders to put back together in the proper order once they get to their destination.

4. The data packets will reach the nearest VoIP gateway to your destination. This gateway, regardless of the similarity with the sender gateway previously, will do the same functioning of transferring, that is to translate the signal back into an analog format.

5. The transferred signal will then be directed to the number you dialed.