How to Get Better VoIP - 27 Tutorials, Tips, and Tricks

By: VoIP Now, on March 20, 2007

So you've bought into VoIP, but your voice still sounds like it's at the end of a long string and a tin can. And your phone? Well, you might be able to dress it up, but can you take it out? Plus, the VoIP critics are driving you nuts because you constantly need to defend your VoIP choice against your friends' and family's objections. How do you remedy these situations? For starters, you can use these 27 tips, tricks and tutorials listed below. The success that you experience from implementing these tools might vary among companies or models. But, they're guaranteed to help you overcome any doubt that you might harbor about your VoIP choice.

Tutorials

Tutorials provide great tools for self-defense. When you know the background, the technology, and the limitations and possibilities behind VoIP, you can explain this technology to others. Plus, when you keep up on news, you can stay on top of the latest trends within this industry. With that much knowledge under your belt you'll be known as the local VoIP expert rather than as the telephony oddball.

  1. Techtionary — A Flash-enabled VoIP e-Learning Tutorial that demonstrates more than a dozen popular VoIP phones and their features. Plus, you'll encounter illustrated guides that show how VoIP works, how to configure VoIP, and how to configure products. This Flash tutorial is a small portion of the larger Techtionary site, where you can snag many more tutorials, information about VoIP classes and more.
  2. CNET Internet Phones — Who doesn't trust CNET for their trusted reviews and their software downloads? You can count on Rafe Needleman, editor for CNET.com Business Buying Advice, to walk you through VoIP 101 as well. This CNET section offers videos on Internet phone pros and cons, a glossary, commentary, reviews and more. A one-stop shop for VoIP information.
  3. VoIP Howto — Roberto Arcomano offers a plain-as-milk and just as nutritious site that outlines an extensive VoIP how-to guide. Learn about VoIP history, an industry overview, technology, and set-up, including system requirements.
  4. NACT VoIP Industry Tutorial [PDF] — NACT Telecommunications, Inc. provides information on how a large VoIP network should be set up and managed, including the interconnection of multiple VoIP carrier networks. The glossary contained within this short tutorial is an essential tool.
  5. International Engineering Consortium VoIP Tutorial — Free access to a comprehensive tutorial that's available online and through PDF.
  6. VoIP Tutorial — What better way to cement your relationship with VoIP than through Juzaily Ramli's VoIP Tutorials? Juzaily, co-author with his wife Juwita, said he discovered VoIP when he was studying in Australia, while Juwita, his fiancée at the time, was working in their home country, Malaysia. “Because I could only afford one phone call a week, maintaining a long distance relationship was quite a challenge,” said Juzaily, speaking from experience. It appears that VoIP resolved their long-distance problem.
  7. Stay Tuned with VoIP Now — Take time now to bookmark this site for future reference. VoIP Now's updates, news, opinions, and articles will help you stay on top of the VoIP industry. We also offer a VoIP 101 feature for beginners.

Tips

VoIP tips range from networks to residential use, but they all provide information on how to construct and operate the hottest VoIP connectivity around. So, don't skip some tips just because you feel that they don't pertain to you. You might discover some information that will resolve any problem you might encounter.

  1. Come in Loud and Clear — If you have a hardware-based Internet phone setup consisting of a VoIP adapter linked to your broadband modem or router on one end and attached to a standard telephone on the other, Aoife M. McEvoy's tips at PC World will help you minimize your Net-phone woes.
  2. Merrill Lynch Does It — Alok Kapoor, managing director of Merrill Lynch's Global Private Client Technology, offers six vital tips on how to roll out a VoIP network at Network Computing.
  3. Network Issues — The personal problems you might experience with VoIP are magnified when VoIP is set up for networks, but you might earn a raise and a promotion if you can resolve network VoIP issues before they arise. Before you convince your boss to tie into a network VoIP solution, read the expansive tips offered by Kenneth Percy and Michael Hommer at NetworkWorld so you can be the network VoIP hero.
  4. Residential Purchase Tips — If you haven't decided on a service provider, or if you want to switch, how do you know what's available? Smith on VoIP offers a rundown on various top VoIP services and provides several tips to follow if you're a residential user.
  5. How to Wire Your Home — Forget work. How do you wire your home for telephony? O'Reilly shows you how through a short tutorial by Brian McConnell.
  6. VOIP.com Tips — What better way to get tips on how to use your VoIP service than through the company that you dealt with in the first place. This tip isn't an endorsement for VoIP.com, but it does provide just one example of how you can learn how to tweak and treat your VoIP service to be the best that it can be.
  7. Hacking Skype — On the other hand, you might enjoy unbiased information about your VoIP service through secondary sources like this article abut Skype at VoIP News.
  8. Calculate Your Savings — Anytime you can prove how much money you'll save by using VoIP technology, the better your standing among your peers. John P. Blackman at PCMechanic offers an easy-to-understand formula that will confirm your wise VoIP decision.
  9. Register at VoIPSearch.com — Registration is free, and you can enjoy access to all the VoIP tips that your heart desires.
  10. Free VoIP Tips — You don't need to register at this site to learn how to tweak a variety of VoIP services.
  11. Voip for Teaching — The eight reasons to use VoIP and VoIM in teaching provide some clues as to where VoIP/VoIM is now and where it might head in the future. The tips within this list can lead you to various VoIP and VoIM services that offer tools such as teleconferencing, file sharing, language translation and more.

Tricks

You can learn plenty of tricks through the tutorials and tips above, but none of them will help you to "trick out" your VoIP service with humor, games, or the ability to make your telephony life easier like the treats provided below.

  1. Verballs — If your friends and family won't take your VoIP obsession seriously, then play along with with some Verball humor. Trick your desk out with the likes of Slick and Britney, caricatures that are USB-powered hands-free speakerphones in disguise.
  2. PhoneGnome — The PhoneGnome box essentially transforms your existing phones into Dual-mode VoIP/landline phones. The trick behind this treat is that both parties need to own a box for two-way conversations to work. Sneak one into a friend's house and surprise them with an introduction to VoIP via a phone call.
  3. Mvox Duo — Pre-order this headset-turned-speakerphone for your VoIP USB-connected conference phone. This hands-free technology will make it appear that you've become one with your VoIP technology.
  4. Reduce Noise — Take control. Reduce the ambient noise on any VoIP service with Solicall freeware [1.17 MB | Win 2000/XP]. As a bonus, this software comes with an Automatic Recorder that allows you to record calls and file them on your PC.
  5. Virtual Personality — Do you want to be a private detective? Or, would you rather avoid your mother-in-law? You might be able to do both with a new Virtual Personality. This shareware [2.08 MB | Win all], offered by Triplebit, promises to make you a man when you're really a woman and vice versa. Great tool for game playing (see #26) or for avoiding bill collectors, but be aware that there is such a thing as voice recognition.
  6. Conduct a Voice Conference — Once you've talked your boss into company-wide VoIP service, show him how to conduct a conference call via Vax VoIP SDK shareware [1.13 MB | Win All]. Is this shareware worth US$499? Conduct a free trial to see if it works, then decide for yourself.
  7. Google Talk Tricks — Impress friends with your shortcut tricks and games that you can play on Google Talk.
  8. More Games — If you want add voice to the likes of Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft XBox Live, you can — and you can narrow that gap between you and your anti-VoIP friends in the process. Check out the list provided by Folkstone and pick a game that highlights your international VoIP flair. Before you lay down some cash in the endeavor, you might want to read more about massively multiplayer online games (MMOG) and typical VoIP difficulties from Christine Herron's perspective. But, if you employ some of the tricks in this list, you might be able to reduce some of those problems immensely (like ambient noise).
  9. Voip Hacks — Yes, you can tap into a plethora of information on the WWW, but sometimes a great book will give you information that you can't find anywhere else. Go straight to Ted Wallingford's Book, Voip Hacks, to learn how to put all the above tutorials, tips, and tricks and more into practice.