The VOIP Headset – Talk More Easily Via the Internet

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So what is a VOIP headset? VOIP stands for ‘voice over internet protocol’ and simply means any technology that lets you make phone calls through your computer. The best known system is Skype, which is now being used for work and private communication all over the world. Who would have thought ten years ago that we were so close to free international computer to computer phone calls, complete with live video link?!

But relying on your computer’s microphone and speakers for casual chats or important business conversations isn’t so great. The microphone picks up background noise and the speakers broadcast the other side of the conversation to everyone else in the room. People tend to raise their voices to make up for bad sound quality and conversations become unnatural and awkward. This is where a good quality voice over IP headset comes in. Plug it into your computer and the voice quality of your call improves dramatically. The dedicated microphone transmits your voice clearly and you can hear your caller easily through the earphones.


In a business setting this has obvious advantages. Until recently the quality of applications like Skype wasn’t reliable enough for extensive business use, often experiencing problems of distorted sound or call dropping, especially where bandwidth is a problem. With quality improving all the time, more and more businesses and professionals are using the internet for their long distance and overseas phone calls, but a VOIP headset is essential for a good quality call.

The VOIP headset keeps phone conversations private and eliminates background noise, so that several different conversations can be going on in the same office without distracting each other. It has its own volume control, and being completely hands free, allows you to multi task, typing or information gathering on the internet as you talk. The old image of the busy professional, phone uncomfortably clamped between shoulder and ear, while fingers clatter over the keyboard, is long gone. Sleek headsets or, even more futuristic, sets that are just a tiny earpiece with clip on microphone, have revolutionized communications.


The simplest VOIP headsets are a set of headphones and microphone that plugs in to your computer. When you are wearing them you are connected to the computer by the cord so you have to be at your desk. But there is a new breed of cordless headsets, which really make a difference to the flexibility of internet phone calls, allowing you to move around anywhere within 150 m of your computer and still answer calls and talk. With this flexibility, voice over IP technology has caught up with and overtaken traditional phone systems, although it has not replaced them altogether just yet.

The practicality of a VOIP headset shouldn’t just be restricted to business use. Every family computer should also have one. When your kids are chatting endlessly to friends on Skype as they play an unintelligible internet game, with a VOIP headset they can talk quietly into the headset instead of shouting into the computer, with their friend’s voice blaring back and driving you crazy! When you want a quiet chat with family overseas and the house is busy and noisy, you can put on the headset and muffle the background noise, making it easier to focus on your conversation.

Altogether the VOIP headset has transformed internet phone calls from awkward and disjointed affairs into smooth and comfortable communication, as good as the traditional phone call, making them a practical and very usable part of every day life both at work and at home.

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