VOIP - The Phone Service for your Internet

VOIP - The Phone Service for your Internet

What is it?

VOIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol. This means your voice will get sent across the Internet instead of through the traditional telephone circuit network.

The biggest question you may have is why should I consider VOIP service over traditional phone service?

This is the question I first had when considering VOIP as well. I found the advantages of VOIP far outweigh that of the traditional phone system. Among these advantages are significant cost savings, unlimited talking over both local and long distance, the ability to select any area code you want, and the huge amount of features available.

Cost Savings

The low-cost was my main reason for moving from the tradition phone system to VOIP. You can pay one low monthly fee and get all the features and advantages associated with Internet phone service. There are not near as many taxes and fees associate with VOIP phone service as there are with tradition phone providers. There are no surprises because you know your monthly rate.

Unlimited Minutes

Another huge advantage of VOIP is unlimited talking minutes for both local and long distance for one low fee. You could be in California and speak to someone in New York at anytime of day for as long as you want to without having to worry about per minute charges.

Portability

VOIP is a very portable service. It can be used permanently at home, or you can bring it with you while you travel. All you need is access to a high speed Internet connection. You can select any area code you wish to have your phone service through. This means you could have relatives a significant distance away whom you talk to quite often and you don't have to make them call long distance. This service benefited me very much while I was in college in Colorado and talking with my friends and parents in Michigan.

Features

Most of the extra features on traditional phone service lines can cost quite a bit of money. These features are now included as part of your normal rates with VOIP. These included features can include voicemail, caller id, call waiting, call forwarding, 3-way calling, and many, many more. I regularly receive voice messages and they are sent to my email as a sound attachment! I love the convenience.

Other Information

VOIP has so many advantages, but as with everything, there are potential downsides. The technology used by VOIP requires a high speed Internet connection such as DSL or Cable to function properly. There is plenty of bandwidth in DSL and Cable Internet services for VOIP to function properly, but dialup just doesn't provide the bandwidth necessary.

Learn about DSL, Cable, and VOIP technologies at

VoIP Phone Reviews

VoIP is the fastest growing internet communication service. With features and services not normally found in traditional landlines, it is fast becoming the number one choice of people.

At first, people have been skeptical to use VoIP but soon found out the effectiveness and convenience of VoIP.

VoIP phones are now changing people's perspective on the use of telephone. If you want a phone, it can be a good choice.

VoIP offers standard features that regular landline phones often charges extra. For instance, free or low cost long distance calls are often not available in regular landlines. This is because VoIP uses the internet to make a call. Since the internet offers free information, and fast communication, VoIP phones take advantage of this feature to transmit the calls free.

With a VoIP phone, you can take your personal number wherever you are. You can make and receive phone calls from your number even if you are traveling as long as there is an active internet connection to where you are going.

There are many VoIP broadband phone provider in the market today, choosing the right one would be very beneficial for your business or personal for your use.

Here are some of the things you should look for when choosing VoIP service providers:

Audio Quality Recent advancement in technology allows better sound quality with reduced noise. This means that a VoIP service provider should have excellent audio quality when making calls. If you experience lags or delays in your phone calls, you should think twice before subscribing to the company another time.

Little or no delay transmission is needed for your voice to reach the person you are calling. A one-second delay can mean the difference of making a simple answer of "yes" or "no". Remember that voice delays can mean misunderstanding, and precise answers are extremely important in businesses.

Reliability Imagine making an important business deal or talking to your family and friends and your call is suddenly cut off. This is a bad sign that your service provider is not making sure that you get your money's worth.

Get a VoIP service provider that offers maximum reliability and free try out periods to ensure you that they give the best service to their subscribers. Although cheap rates are attractive, try their services first before committing.

Customer Service VoIP service providers should offer customer support 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. This can help you if you ever have problems using VoIP.

The customer assistance service should be quick and take care of their subscribers immediately after making the call. Know if the VoIP service providers you are planning on subscribing have customer assistance. Customer service can be found in the VoIP service providers or by calling them.

Features VoIP service providers should offer standard features like; free long distance calls, emails, fax, web conferencing, and videophone and others for no extra fee at all. Still quite a few VoIP service providers out there charge for these extra features. Get a VoIP service provider that offers maximum standard features free.

Price VoIP is supposed to be free or cheap. Get a VoIP service provider that offer free long distance and low monthly payments. Make sure that not only it should be cheap but also offers quality service. Most providers offer trial periods, use this to determine if it is worth spending you hard earned cash.

However convenient it might be to own a VoIP phone, there are still drawbacks for it. For example, you should have a high-speed internet connected.

Since VoIP phones depends on your internet connection, this means that disconnected internet, no VoIP service. Slow internet connection is also a factor. With slow internet connection, expect audio delays.

It is wise that before getting a VoIP phone, you should determine that the internet connection in your area is broadband and reliable.

Here are some of the top VoIP service providers:

Vonage Sunrocket VoIP.net Time Warner Cable Packet8

If the following companies do not cover your area, you can always find VoIP providers in your area. Just make sure they offer quality services and choose one used by your family and friends so you can call them free, wherever they are.

Bob Hett has extensively covered the VoIP Service Provider industry as an analyst and has researched the various companies for factors based on price, reliability, support and overall quality. Learn more at VoIP Phones

VOIP against the traditional phone services

VOIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) - allows you to make telephone calls using a computer network in very simple way . It converts the voice signal from your telephone into a digital signal that's why you can speak to anyone with a regular phone number. You can change the way you think about long-distance phone calls. People generally like to use the new technology because its costs are less than traditional phone Below are listed some of the advantages and disadvantages of using VOIP .

VOIP offers you:
Lower costs per call, especially for long-distance calls VOIP can reduce international call tolls by as much as 40%. You can talk with many people at the same time without any additional cost. The call can be made to a local number, a mobile phone, to a long distance number or an international number - without any additional cost. You can also use services that are not available with a traditional phone - you can send data, like pictures and documents while talking on the phone. As long as you have access to a broadband connection you don't need to pay for roaming or long distance charges wherever you travel. That's why the VOIP is very important in business. You have also ability to receive internet phone calls anywhere you are, as long as you are accessible to the internet. One of the various advantages is that many services such as caller id, call forwarding, call waiting, three way calling, and voice mail features often come standard with most VOIP plans. Unfortunately I have to report some problem with the integration between VoIP system and Internet. The main problem is as you can imagine voice data communication must be a real time stream (you couldn't speak, wait for many seconds, then hear other side answering) - the risks involved with poor internet connections, lost signals, and dropped data packets. Below are listed of some other problems of using VOIP:

1. Not all VoIP services connect directly to emergency services.

2. The risks involved with poor internet connections, lost signals, and dropped data packets.

3. It only works if your computer is switched on and the VOIP software is running.

4. The other person with whom you are trying to communicate with has to get the same program loaded and running on his computer.

5. Poor quality of the sound- phone calls often have lot of delay with lot of echo.

6. To get lower bandwidth you need additional processing power that makes digital phones more expensive than analog phones.

7. You must have a DSL router or a second computer set up to run a second phone line. With traditional phone services, a phone jack is in almost every room.

Today we can see a real revolution in communication world.. That technology has the potential to completely rework the world's phone systems because the internet has grown very much in the last years and it is free that's why could be the right communication media for future. It may be the right solution but it may not be suitable for everyone.

Tom Pisarski is the founder of Voip Forums and Voip Directory.