Current Challenges and Opportunities in VoIP over Wireless Networks

The tremendous emergence of different wireless technologies has created many opportunities for extending many Internet applications and services to the wireless domain, and has envisioned many new ones. When we refer to wireless networks, people thoughts go directly to the Wireless Fidelity (WiFi) technology. However, WiFi networks are one type of the wireless networks that have been used for several years on a small scale areas and buildings such as schools, offices, companies, restaurants, and airports. The other types of wireless networks that cover larger geographical areas are the third and fourth Generation wireless networks, abbreviated as 3G, 4G networks, respectively, which basically use the mobile infrastructure. Some examples of these networks are High Speed Packet Access (HSPA), Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access (WiMax), and Long Term Evolution (LTE). In this book chapter, when we refer to the wireless network, we refer to both types of networks unless we specify one of them.