These days, technology is changing the way we think about even the simplest of things, including the age old act of making phone calls. Thanks to a new technology known as VoIP, you can reach out and touch somebody without having to spend a small fortune.
Chris Barber is the chief technician at Cheaper Than A Geek, a Bowie, Maryland IT firm equipped, and according to him, in recent years, more and more people have been foregoing traditional phone service in favor of switching to VoIP.
Not familiar with the concept? VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol, and it works by using your Internet connection as a way of enabling you to make phone calls. While traditional phone companies use phone lines and household jacks for communications purposes, VoIP uses the Internet as the virtual wire between your phone and your provider.
One of the best reasons to make the switch to VoIP is that it tends to be much cheaper than the rates of the average phone company. If you tend to make a lot of long distance phone calls, then by switching to VoIP, you can save yourself a fair amount of money.
Why is VoIP so much cheaper than traditional phone plans? Since VoIP providers don’t have to maintain physical phone lines or wires that connect in and out of your house, their operational expenses tend to be lower than those of regular phone companies. Therefore, VoIP providers are able to pass this savings onto their customers via lower charges from the get-go.
While VoIP certainly has a lot to offer as far as cost savings are concerned, you should know that it isn’t a perfect setup. VoIP has a tendency to be buggier than standard phone lines, and sometimes, voice quality can be poor over a VoIP connection. Remember, since VoIP relies on a stable Internet connection to do its thing, any problems with your Internet connection will instantly translate into problems with your phone connection. And if your Internet connection happens to be notoriously slow, then you might want to stick to traditional phone service, as you’ll be less likely to find yourself struggling through broken up calls. Along these lines, if you’re aware that you have a spotty Internet connection, then don’t even think about comfortably surfing the web and using VoIP to make calls at the same time, as the two will only end up competing with one another for limited network space.
If your Internet connection is fairly solid and you’re looking for a way to cut back on your phone expenses, then VoIP might be the perfect way to go – in which case, you’ll want to get in touch with a computer technician to install your VoIP setup for you. On the other hand, if your Internet connection is unreliable and you can make your peace with the notion of paying a higher monthly communications fee in exchange for added stability, then there’s no need to jump on the VoIP bandwagon. After all, just because technology is constantly offering new advances doesn’t mean that you have to embrace each and every one of them.
