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VoIP (short for Voice over IP) is a new technology currently becoming
popular, which lets you use the internet to place phone calls. This is
possible since most users are now using high speed internet, which is able
to transport the required data at a fast enough speed to be able to talk to
somebody. Because VoIP uses the internet line to place the phone calls,
you won't have to pay any money to the "big" phone companies for the use of
their traditional phone lines, which allows the VoIP companies to operate at
much smaller costs.
Because you can use an internet line from anywhere in the world to place
these calls, it is also possible for you to have a number located in the US,
while actually being in Japan, for example. That way, your friends who live
in the US won't have to pay international rates when calling you, and the
ones living in the area of your phone number would actually only have to pay
local phone costs. Therefore VoIP is great for people living abroad, but
still having many friends or family they like to talk to in the US or Canada.
VoIP is also great for people who use the phone very frequently. This is
because most VoIP services offer unlimited calls within the US and Canada
for a monthly fee, you can continue to use your phone (your VoIP phone now)
for as much calling as you want and still only pay the monthly fee. This
will also help you save substantial amounts of money.
Would I recommend using VoIP to businesses to whom every call is
important? Not necessarily. The reason therefore is that VoIP is still
pretty new and even though the quality of the calls is usually pretty good,
it also usually doesn't match the quality of calls using land lines.
Therefore, it might happen sometimes that a call gets disconnected, which is
basically something that can also happen with a cell phone. Therefore, I
would rate the quality of VoIP similar to using cell phones. They usually
work great, but are not always 100% reliable.
But, overall, if you talk a lot with friends of family, and it's ok for
some calls to disconnect from time to time, we highly recommend using VoIP,
as it can be a great money saver for you and your friends and family. |
