# Does VoIP eat bandwidth?



## Hybrid_theory (Jan 17, 2010)

My brother has a DSL connection with a 200GB limit, he can upgrade to unlimited if necessary. Now my mom just ordered a VoIP phone service which will use that connection for calls. Now they wont use the landline constantly or anything but whats the data transfer rate of a VoIP phone, or is there nothing to worry about.


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## CounterZeus (Jan 17, 2010)

normally, it won't count as internet traffic and even if it counts, VoIP has low bandwidth usage ^-^


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## AsRock (Jan 17, 2010)

CounterZeus said:


> normally, it won't count as internet traffic and even if it counts, VoIP has low bandwidth usage ^-^



Yes it does another reason i will not pay for it again.  Well there was another reason was due to the extreme spam we got


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## buffy (Jan 17, 2010)

Here you go: http://www.bandcalc.com/


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## Hybrid_theory (Jan 18, 2010)

buffy said:


> Here you go: http://www.bandcalc.com/



wouldnt know what to fill in for that. read some of the notes and its still beyond my knowledge of communications

edit: well i picked 2 channels as it seems it would use that for all regular calls. then just ip and its around 160kbps. i assume thats a good estimate>


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## bud951 (Jan 18, 2010)

I have been wondering if my Time Warner digital phone takes away from my internet bandwidth. I have Cable, internet and digital phone which is VoIP. If someone is on my phone does it mean I get less internet? I cant really say that I have ever noticed a difference but I just wanted to know if it does have any affect.


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## Hybrid_theory (Jan 18, 2010)

bud951 said:


> I have been wondering if my Time Warner digital phone takes away from my internet bandwidth. I have Cable, internet and digital phone which is VoIP. If someone is on my phone does it mean I get less internet? I cant really say that I have ever noticed a difference but I just wanted to know if it does have any affect.



well anything you use over the internet will lower the speed capabilities of anything else. with that said 160kbps is nothing to most connections.


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## buffy (Jan 18, 2010)

The problem with VOIP is that you will get problems if there are any dealyed packets. IPv6 has a headder packet that will auto prioritise VOIP solving this problem. If you do decided to run a voip phone make sure your ISP runs MPLS and that your router is can enable QoS, this will make a massive difference.

Dont get me wrong you can still run VOIP with out either of those two things, but you may find that the service degrades quickly if other users are taking up bandwidth.
128K line (ISDN) should be able to handle a single channel VOIP.


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