Communication over the internet has become a vital part of the internet, allowing people to stay in touch and send messages from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. However, Email itself is not enough for this, as the delay between emails can slow down the communication process. This is where two relatively new forms of internet communication come in.
Instant Messaging, or IM is a service which transfers messages between you and another person using the same service in real time. It is an effective way of having a conversation as opposed to a series of delayed messages, and is often used in place of actual conversations, or phone calls because of its 0 cost and extreme convenience.
Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP, or Voice over IP) is a service which allows for the transfer of voice over the internet, in a manner which creates a conversation very similar to a phone call. The difference between a phone call and VoIP is the way it is transmitted. Mobile Phones typically use radio waves to send the phone call from device to device, whereas a VoIP call uses the internet, resulting in less problems of bad signal if both participants have reasonable internet connections.
Although IM and VoIP are both great systems of holding a conversation, there can be problems to using the internet for communication:
Latency -If Either recipient has a slow connection, there is a big delay (latency) between a message being sent and a message being recieved, which can defeat the purpose of a real time conversation if the latency is too high
Reliance on internet connection - internet connections are not stable in all parts of the world (or even all parts of the country) presenting serious issues for some people as internet becomes more and more frequently used for communication.
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