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The article below states several
reasons why you should try a VoIP telephone solution in your home if
you haven’t done so already. It is easy to set up and almost all of
the VoIP Telephone providers provide a free trial period.
To compare the best VoIP providers in the VoIP
industry, go to www.VoIPChoices.com. You can do a side-by-side comparison of all of
the top VoIP providers by price as well as features.See if a VoIP
solution is right for you and your family.
Is My Home Ready for Voice over IP (VoIP)
Telephony?
by: Chuck
Smith
Is My Home Ready for Voice over IP (VoIP)
Telephony?
VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is
finally reaching out to thousands of average homes to offer huge
savings in telephone costs. Already popular with the corporate
world, VoIP, sometimes called Internet Telephony, IP telephony, or
Internet phone, uses your computer's broadband connection - not
traditional phones lines - to make long distance, inter-state or
local calls.
VoIP works by converting your voice into data,
transmitting it over the Internet, and then converting it back into
a voice stream so that it can be played on any telephone in the
world - almost in the same way your computer transmits email over
the Internet.
Less expensive than traditional phones, and
convenient -- you just use your computer or a VoIP-ready phone and a
broadband Internet connection to make your calls -- VoIP makes for
good economic sense. Around for a decade now, VoIP has overcome
teething problems to come of age, using advances in PC and IP
technology to provide voice quality telephone calls at low Internet
rates.
Rising Popularity
International and state-to-state calls,
expensive on conventional phone systems, are available at lower
prices on VoIP. Finding this cost saving and its voice quality
attractive, more home users and businesses are choosing to opt for
VoIP.
But, to work well, VoIP needs a good bandwidth
connection, such as broadband cable or DSL. Freely accessible
nowadays -- 22% of Americans use broadband right now and the numbers
are rising each day -- analysts estimate that 50% of Americans will
use VoIP in the next two to three years.
The Ins and Outs of VoIP
To use VoIP, you need a broadband connection
(either cable or DSL), a regular phone or computer microphone, and a
special VoIP router adaptor to connect your phone to the Internet.
And, you'll also need the services of a VoIP service provider, such
as Vonage or Skype. Depending on the service you use, you can either
use the telephone connected to the VoIP router, or call directly
from your computer using your computer's microphone and speaker.
Your call connects to your VoIP service
provider, and they route the call to the phone number you dialed,
converting the VoIP data into a plain old telephone call before
reaching its destination. This is how you connect to any telephone
in the world, regardless of whether the person you are calling is
using VoIP or plain old telephone service.
There are a number of different companies that
offer VoIP services. But make sure they provide good voice quality
and reliable support, and comply with Industry Standards. Ask
potential service providers about the security controls they use to
ensure your data and identity is safe and not open to hackers or
virus attacks. You can test several trial downloads before you
choose your VoIP service provider, and you can always visit user
forums on the Internet to check out the kind of problems that
customers experience with these service providers.
Cost Factors
Right now, VoIP is fairly inexpensive,
averaging around $15 - $65 per month. This is because the VoIP
industry enjoys special tax breaks and other privileges. These
privileges may be withdrawn in the future, though lobbyists are
trying hard not to let that happen. In any case, VoIP is likely to
become less expensive as more people turn to it in the future.
In addition, there are a number of free VoIP
service providers (who usually have some paid upgraded services)
that will allow you to make free VoIP calls among the users of their
network. For example, if you sign up for the free Skype service, you
can connect with any other Skype user and talk for free.
VoIP - the Pluses and Minuses
Apart from the ease of use, people choose VoIP
because it is inexpensive, letting them "phone-trot" any wherever
they want to without having to worry about the length of a call, how
often you call, or the cost when the bill arrives. Additionally,
with some VoIP services, there are no fixed monthly charges to pay,
like a regular phone.
On the other hand, if your Internet connection
is down, your Internet phone is inoperable as well. And, slow IP
connections can hamper VoIP transmissions, causing problems like
echoes, delayed response times or voice failure. It's the sort of
thing that happens when you find it difficult to connect to the Web,
or can't download a file, only it affects VoIP more.
Still, with the advances made in VoIP
technology over the past year or so, and the growing momentum with
consumers, VoIP is definitely worth looking into for your home.
There's even a site that will let you test whether your home
broadband connection is ready for VoIP. Just go to www.TestYourVoIP.com, and
test your home broadband connection in less than 5 minutes for free.
So take a chance and look into VoIP. You may
be surprised at how much money you can save every month on phone
services -- and you can brag about your technical savvy to friends,
co-workers, and neighbors!
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About The Author
Chuck Smith runs http://www.LGVoIP.com, a resource for information about the Voice over
IP (VoIP) industry. Find out more about VoIP, and whether VoIP
is right for you, at LG VoIP. |
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