Many people get confused while trying to consider using VOIP in their communication about whether to use VOIP ATA or a VOIP router to be able to deploy VOIP, either in their business or their home. One thing that you need to understand is that VOIP router and VOIT ATA are two different things with different functions and different capabilities.
What does VOIP ATA do? VOIP ATA gets a voice ready so that it can be transmitted via internet. VOIP ATA does this by converting the analog signals into digital data signals and then re-fragmenting that data into a packet. Another question here is what the packet does. The packet simply holds the information about the destination of the data, not forgetting that it contains the voice data itself.
On the other end of the communication, VOIP ATA receives the packets, and assembles and re-converts them back to analog voice signals. The analog signals are then fed to your phone. That is the function of the VOIP ATA.
Similarly, the major function of the VOIP router, just as the name suggests is to route you to the internet. It connects you to the internet. One main function of the VOIP router, just like the VOIP ATA, is that it does fragmentation and helps in the re assembling of the packets. This is where many people get confused when choosing between a VOIP ATA and a VOIP Router.
Another function of a VOIP Router, just like the name suggests, is to route the various packets into their destinations. A distinguishing factor between a VOIP router and an ATA is that a VOIP router communicates with the other VOIP routers on the internet. This is to say that when you send a voice over the internet, ATA will send it directly to the ATA on the other side. For a VOIP router, the voice that you send will pass through many VOIP routers before reaching the preferred and final destination.
If you are deploying VOIP at home or in your business and you don’t need internet access, a VOIP ATA will do you good but if you need internet connectivity with your VOIP service, this is when the router comes in to play. An example of when to use a router is if you have a LAN and want to connect it to the internet.
It is projected that in future there may be devices that will have both the ATA and the router’s functions, but at the moment the two are similar yet very different. Similar in using the same voice but different in ways they convey and work on the voice.