Voice over IP (Internet Protocol) has become a household name in the last few months. We cannot go through a week without reading about the frantic world of VoIP. It shows up on newspaper, TV, mailboxes and even on billboards. Well, what does VoIP really mean?It means the voice of the telephone call is turned into digital signals and transmitted as digital packets over the Internet infrastructure like our email and our Web browser. Since it is an Internet network transmission, it is not subjected to the many layers of taxes that burden our phone bill. The result is avoiding long distance call charges when you have two IP phones talking to each other over the Internet.But the scenario above is only good when both the originating party and the receiving party both have the same type of compatible phone. It still prohibits the user from calling any regular phone that is populated in all parts of the world. That is why VoIP gateways are invented. A VoIP gateway is an electronic box that can accept Internet calls on one end and translates it into conventional phone call on the other end.In other words, it has an Internet network input and a conventional phone line output. This way, the IP call comes into the gateway can now be redialed out to any regular phone number in the world.