
What Is Voice Over Wi-Fi?

Has your connection ever suddenly dropped when you're making an important business call? You check your signal—while your cell signal is dead, your device still has a strong internet connection.
You could wait for your cell service to come back, which could end up in a canceled or rescheduled call. Or, with a telecommunications provider that offers voice over Wi-Fi (VoWiFi) capabilities, you could call back right away over the internet and pick up where you left off.
Voice over Wi-Fi is a next-generation voice service that can help telecommunications providers enhance their offerings and become more competitive in the market. This guide explains everything you need to know about incorporating it into your business offerings.
How Does Voice Over Wi-Fi Work?
A typical voice over Wi-Fi call flow follows this sequence.
1. Voice signal conversion
The caller initiates a call on their connected device, and the device's microphone captures their voice as an analog signal.
2. Digitization
Before the system can transmit the call over the internet, it performs an analog-to-digital conversion to digitize the voice data. This process works by sampling the analog signal at regular intervals and assigning a digital value to each signal.
3. Packetization
To make the digital signal easier to transmit, the VoWiFi system divides it into small packets of data. Each packet contains a piece of voice data along with transmission information, such as the source and destination address.
4. Internet transmission
Once the voice data packets are ready for transmission, the device sends them over the Wi-Fi network as Internet Protocol (IP) packets. It completes this step by establishing a link to the internet using the existing Wi-Fi connection and routing the packets to their destination via the Wi-Fi router.
5. Reception and reassembly
The recipient's device receives the digital packets and reassembles them in the correct order based on the information included in each packet.
6. Digital-to-analog conversion
After reassembly, the recipient's device uses digital-to-analog conversion to convert the digital data packets back into an analog signal. This process enables the voice data to play through the device's speaker, enabling the recipient to hear the caller's voice just like in a traditional phone call.
VoWiFi vs. VoIP: What's the Difference?
Although they're similar concepts, VoWiFi and Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) are fundamentally different communication technologies. Understanding how they differ can help your business choose the right solution.





