Being a VOIP user in a PSTN World
Visit www.audivoip.com for free fees and features comaprison and analysis of VOIP Telephone Providers.
VOIP is new and unknown to the average consumer, and thus fear inducing. People are scared to give up their traditional landline because frankly VOIP sounds too good to be true. How can VOIP cut your phone bill so drastically and be comparable in quality to your traditinal landline.
In case you’ve never heard the term VOIP, it stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol, and is a revolutionary new way to communicate. By using your existing high speed internet connection(cable or dsl), you are able to replace your traditional phone line with a digital line existing anywhere you wish to take it. If you currently have phone service through your cable company you may have already experience some of what VOIP has to offer, even at a reduced price from traditional PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Networks), but there is so much more than what your cable provider is willing to offer.
The cost at which your cable company is charging you is only fractionally lower than traditional phone service, because they change your houses phone wiring to support VOIP phone service. The VOIP service that you get from your Cable company operates differently than what you would get from ViaTalk or ZingoTel, and because of that they are able to offer the service at a much lower cost.
There are many advantages to VOIP service. In many instances you may be able to take the ATA (analog telephone adapter: which converts your analog phone into a digital one ready for using with VOIP) or VOIP Phone (which works only with VOIP) to anywhere in the world where you have high speed internet access and call out or recieve cals; as if you were right at home. Run a business? You can get a 1800 number at a fraction of the cost of traditional phone service. Features that either don’t exist or may cost extra on traditional PSTN lines: voicemail (enhanced to send to your email address), Call Forwarding, 3 Way Calling, Call Waiting, Call Hunting, Simultaneous Ringing, and even Wake up Call Service can be had for free with your VOIP Telephone provider. You can even use your current telephones and rewire your house to use your VOIP service.
VOIP is positioned to be an inexpensive replacement to celluar phones in the future in cities that are completed blanketed with wireless hotspots. Wifi phones are VOIP phones that can be taken to any location that has a wireless hotspot. Want to be in on the ground level when video phone service ramps up, or simply need to videoconference over the internet with an office in China? Several VOIP Provider currently offer video conferencing solutions for business, and in time videophone may be the reason the traditional landline dies of extinction.
But there are disadvantages, currently, to your traditional phone service. 911 service operates differently in the world of VOIP. Enhanced 911, much like the 911 service of a celluar phone, operates based on an address that you provide to Voip Telephone Service. If you decide to take your Telephone service with you on vacation or to a different location, you must therefore update the address that your VOIP provider has for 911 service, lest you end up calling the 911 service in your hometown.
Your traditional telephone line provides the power to your phones, so that if your power goes out you may still have telephone service (provided you use corded phones and your telephone line doesn’t get knocked out at the same time). With VOIP service if your power fails, you are without phone service.
As with traditional service there are hidden fees that may not be found out until you are ready to sign up for the provider. So as with any service I suggest due diligence. I recommend visiting www.audivoip.com,as it is currently the only website that shows the actual hidden fees of VOIP Providers, along with comparison, and analysis of the feature set and total cost for most major VOIP Providers. Vonage is not your only choice for VOIP, and you should check out others before you decide.
[Keywords: VOIP, fees, features, advantages, disadvantages, telephone, provider, voice, over, internet, protocol, save, money, free, review, startup, cost, free, comparison ]
June 10th, 2007