VoiceView Sockets, like sockets in general, provide communications between processes running on separate, but connected, computing systems. A socket is a bi-directional endpoint of communication. For VoiceView, the communications channel is the telephone network, and each endpoint includes a VoiceView-enabled hardware device. VoiceView Sockets differ from other typical sockets in two major ways: quality of service and method of addressing.
The quality of service for VoiceView Sockets is low, because the transfer of information is extremely slow compared to TCP/IP or IPX sockets. Additionally, although VoiceView optimizes the transition from voice to data modes, it interrupts the normal voice communication for at least one second. An application that switches frequently between voice and data modes can disrupt a normal voice call. The advantages that VoiceView provides should offset that disruption.
VoiceView Sockets addressing differs from typical sockets because it involves a point-to-point connection with a specific protocol ID embedded in the address structure. This necessitates that an application call the bind function before it can use the listen function.