Hardware-based VoIP phone

The overall hardware may look like a telephone or mobile phone. An VoIP phone has the following hardware components.

• Speaker/ear phone and microphone
• Key pad/touch pad to enter phone number and text (not used for ATAs).
• Display hardware to feedback user input and show caller-id/messages (not used for ATAs).
• General purpose processor (GPP) to process application messages.
• A voice engine or a digital signal processor (DSP) to process RTP messages. Some IC manufacturers provides GPP and DSP in single chip.
• ADC and DAC converters: To convert voice to digital data and vice versa.
• Ethernet or wireless network hardware to send and receive messages on data network.
• Power source might be a battery or DC source. Some VoIP phones receive electricity from Power over Ethernet.

For wireless VoIP phones

• battery
• Wireless network interface controller