Q&A: Is Voice over Internet generally more or less secure than a regular landline?
Question by city8of8angels: Is Voice over Internet generally more or less secure than a regular landline?
I have about had it with AT&T. Ever since their strange merger, things have only gone downhill.
First of all, never in our (I and my husband) lives have we had a $ 60 landline phone bill. We do not like to use that phone for anything. The only reason we have a landline is for professional/business purposes.
Second, somebody who claimed to be from AT&T had made an attempt to tinker with our connection. If we did not live on a military base and all visitors had to be screened and approved, who knows who these people where and what they were trying to do.
So, here I am wondering if VOIP is worse or better with that kind of stuff. I would really appreciate knowledgeable opinions. Thank you!
Best answer:
Answer by Mr. VoIP
No consumer electronic communications is absolutely secure or tamper proof. We all know that telephones can be tapped, legally and illegally. If the Feds and law enforcement want to tap your lines, they can do so legally with a court order (or just claim national security reasons).
But, the same holds true with VoIP. Technically speaking, VoIP is more difficult to tap, but it can be done with the right equipment. And, VoIP companies are required by law, or by agreement, to allow law enforcement to tap lines if required too.
So, when it comes to security, nothing is absolutely secure.
Now, some VoIP services are starting to encrypt their VoIP data while traversing over their own networks. So, in those cases, it is secure from random tapping over the Internet. But, as soon as the connection terminates to a real telephone that connects to the PSTN landline network, it is no longer truely secure from taps.
Skype is well known to encrypt their client data while traversing over the Internet. So, they are about as secure as you can get from a public service.
But, to address your concerns about cost, VoIP will always cost you less (for comparable service features) than any PSTN or cell phone service. Even if a person keeps their “basic” landline service for emergency backup (no extras), VoIP will save them considerable money when it comes to having a 2nd phone line and long distance calling.
Source(s):
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
No carrier that uses the Internet for voice transport can assure dependable voice quality. The internet is not designed to provide the absolutely required priority for voice over data packets and this is why voice quality cannot be assured. This is contrary to the nice ads that these carriers provide where they claim low cost and high dependability. In fact they have no expense associated with maintaining the carrier line as someone else (the Internet carriers) does and they just cannot assure quality.
Security over the internet is something that the carriers talk about and it they encrypt packets you are probably secure but there is no assurance of voice quality regardless of encryption.
VoIP on a private, controlled network which handles voice packets with priority can be suitable but this is not what you requested.
If you want dependability, do not use VoIP carriers that use the Internet for transport
In addition to your other answers you should consider maintenance. If your line were to be accidentally cut somewhere in the alley, down the street, or a couple of miles away you would still be relying on the local exchange company (AT&T, Bell or who ever) to fix it. If this does happen you need to insure that your new carrier has 24 hour maintenance operation, and know this; sometimes they say they do and don’t. Their concept of 24 hour, is calling their test desk guy at home and telling him he needs to go to the office to look at some circuits on Christmas eve. That person will have to interface with the local exchange company once he determines that the circuit is, indeed not working. The same would hold true if your carriers equipment failed, how long would it take them to fix it. They will tell you that doesn’t happen but they are also big on fabricating the facts.
Another consideration is whether you have or will need to have a fax line, there are other pieces of hardware and programming that will need to be purchased on a voip application.
And last, because someone messed with the line is not an indication that something bad was happening. Even though you are on a military base, many times the local company still has permission to access the property for service. They also use a lot of contracting service these days (guys in regular trucks). These days whether on a military installation or not the local exchange companies have been hit hard by residential users defecting to other providers and tend to not provide a quality service for the residential line. Although this is an ignorant policy due to the fact that all there carriers are in the same infrastructure, so where they really make their money is in the same cable as residential service. I don’t hear anyone going to bat for the old Bell operating companies very often, as they had a corner on the market for a long time, and I think people tend to shut them out, however they still own the controlling interest of most infrastructure for communications with cable tv companies hot on their trail. By the way, CATV might be an option for you.
One last item about the quality of voip, it’s really improved over the years. The only real quality complaint I hear about is Vonage, and don’t know that to be a fact just have heard it.