Translating voice calls between digital for the Internet and analogue for telephone systems is a challenging task, and that is the task that VoIP gateways perform by switching the calls between analogue and digital. They can also help direct VoIP calls to specific users. And they are able to translate between different VoIP protocols. This enables compatibility between VoIP systems and devices. Because of all of these benefits it is easy to see why VoIP gateways are highly recommended for any VoIP service.



More VoIP gateway products have become available to customers as the popularity of VoIP as a stable telephone service has increased. Some of the well known manufacturers of gateways include Nortel Networks and Cisco Systems.

VoIP gateways can either be hardware or software based. Hardware based VoIP gateways are available as a stand alone box and are more expensive than software based ones. They do not put additional load on existing servers and are generally believed to be more reliable than the software ones.

There are many functional options available for gateway products, including fax, STN, and PBX enabled products that offer more than just simple call handling.

The basic VoIP gateways at the lower end of the cost graph comes equipped with a firewall, a router, and a telephone jack, and can be purchased for a few hundred dollars. To offer basic functionality they have ports for the phone jack, the broadband modem, and the computer or network connection. These low end VoIP gateways targets the home user and small business owner.

At the mid range of gateways, additional functionality such as signal encryption and voice compression is offered to ensure security and efficient bandwidth usage.

The high end gateways are used by large corporations and telecommunications providers to provide complex VoIP infrastructure, and they can cost several thousand dollars. They support thousands of channels for advanced voice services, such as IVR - Interactive Voice Response - that allows callers to select an option from a voice menu. They also offer other functions like conference calling and call recording.

There are new features and functions for VoIP gateways being built all of the time, such as support for emerging VoIP standards and faster translations. Many of these improvements are software based and therefore can be sent to customers very quickly and cheaper in the form of a software upgrade.

One can expect to see many more enhancements and improvements before VoIP and VoIP gateways can be considered a matured and saturated market. It will allow VoIP networks to build, expand and upgrade their networks and provide better quality and even more inexpensive calls.