Napster and Kazza are the companies which make Peer to Peer (P2P) technology. They made it popular by developing an application which makes it possible to share files. They were even useful for downloading files which are uploaded by other users on the same network. Peer to Peer (P2P) network uses connection with each individual computers rather than a centralized server based connection. The faster the bandwidth allocated by Internet Service Provider and the processing power of the computer, the better the overall file(s) upload/download performance.

Peer to Peer network can scale indefinitely using cheap central server's that makes the work easy as well as good in aspect of money. Borg from the Star Trek episode is one of the examples of such service.

Peer to Peer Internet telephony is basically a piece of software like Napster which you can download from peer to peer Voice over Internet service provider's website. This software which is also known as Softphone, can be downloaded free from the service provider and can be used to call to anyone on the internet for free. All you need is a headset to listen and a microphone to speak. Those devices can be bought for very little bucks and are very easy to use. You just plug them and they start to work.

Many Peer to Peer Internet telephony service providers also provide you videos calls using web cams. Of course, it can be for free as well. They also provide number of incredible features like conference calls, Peer to Peer chat, call forwarding and instant messaging. These facilities make your computer both telephone and videophone communication point at the same time.

Although the calls within the network can be done for free worldwide, you still need to pay if you want to call to a PSTN number or traditional landline phone. Just like VoIP services people can even call you from local landline phones with all facilities like call conferencing to instant messaging service. Not to worry about as the call costs are not so high. You can have all these service for very cheap as compared to the traditional landline service or Telco.

There are some drawbacks just like other VoIP services. Since all the instant messages and calls go through the public internet, you must use encryption to protect your communication. The quality of service is a bit of lower than landline phone. NATed firewalls and centralized directory for all the members in network using dynamic IP address are few things to make it better.

Peer to Peer and the Gaming Community: Gaming community is another area where the peer to peer ideas are extremely popular. Thousand of gamers are enjoying this experience everyday. There are so many companies who are serving the gamers. PeerMe is one of them. PeerMe offers many services like PC to PC and PC-handheld voice communication, file transfer and instant messaging. Boonty has recently joined them. Boonty is one of the popular game distributors. They are jointly offering a broad selection of game downloads in several languages. Gamers have access to communicate with each other as well as they can create communities and purchase games.

P2P Internet Telephony for Small Businesses: Peer to Peer Voice over Internet protocol solution is extremely popular in small business because of the cost effectiveness. Avaya is the market leader in this field. They have created the one-X quick edition line of SIP telephone which is an IP PBX system and is a non server based service. It has some really incredible and fascinating features. Each phone on the network needs the software to maintain the PBX and every other phone on the network knows all about each other within the same network. It's a very good solution for small business which has several outlets or branches.

They have also developed a business software solution over their Gizmo project. That software supports the Asterisk PBX software's open source edition. That also features a free calling service to anyone on the network. Employees can make free calls to all Mobile phone as well as Landline Phones within 60 countries around the world.

Cost effectiveness is the biggest advantage of peer to peer internet telephony. It's very cheap as compared to the other telephony system. All the user need is a headset and the software to listen and talk which is available at a cheap price in the market. Another thing you need for this is software generally called softphone. Like this Peer to Peer networking is now doing very good for almost all sectors from home use to enterprise and official works to the gaming and music downloads.