It’s time to think about our telephone service and ensure that we are getting the functionality we need at the best possible price. There are three service options: traditional land line, voice over IP, and mobile. The traditional land line or plain old telephone service (POTS) as it is known and voice over IP are direct competitors. To a lesser degree mobile phones have replaced wired lines but in most cases they are an additional service.
First let’s look at mobile phones. If an individual is the only user of a land line phone then eliminating the land line for the convenience of a mobile phone makes sense. Mobile phones offer great functionality and of course are mobile. The only issue that may prevent a mobile only approach is the quality of sound in your home or office. A change in carrier may resolve this problem or you may need a wired phone in your home, office or home office. If the latter is the case keep reading.
We are all familiar with plain old telephone service (POTS) with services such as call waiting, call forwarding, voice mail and more. What’s relatively new is Voice Over IP (VOIP). VOIP provides the same services as the traditional telecommunications companies (AT&T, Verizon, etc.) and more (three way calling, voice mail notification and online account management to name a few) at a lower cost.
The big difference between the two is telecommunications companies run across a large expensive private networks while VOIP runs across the internet (large public infrastructure). If you already have a high speed internet connection then VOIP may be for you. Not only does VOIP cost less but it offers more features and capabilities.
There are two reasons people do not sign up for VOIP service, sound quality and inertia. There is a general fear that voice quality is not as good. The reality is that the voice quality is sufficient for comfortable voice communications. As for inertia, we are used to a phone bill each month and accept that that is the way that it is. We need to break that cycle and move forward.
I chose to purchase my own VOIP hardware for about $35 to save money by avoiding monthly equipment lease payments. Some carriers sell the hardware as part of the initial setup and this is an excellent choice as it offers easy setup and support by the provider. If you do purchase your own be sure to purchase a product that is widely support to ensure that your provider can support you.
The big benefit of VOIP is cost savings. My monthly phone bill went from approximately $45 per month to $12 per month. In addition for my $12 I get more features such as the ability to forward voice mails to one or more email addresses and notifications that new voice mails have arrived. There are also online records of calls received, missed and placed. There are other features as well that make VOIP services very attractive if saving $33 per month is not enough.
Short List of Consumer VOIP Providers
There are many other providers for both consumers, businesses or both. A quick search of the web will result in hundreds of providers but as usual all are not equal.
There are numerous VOIP providers that specialize in business communications. They provide everything from a single phone number to complete virtual PBX systems. Just as with any system, a little planning is in order to determine your requirements and find a suitable vendor.
VOIP has significant benefits for both consumers and small business. Let us know if we can assist you in setting up VOIP for you and/or your company.
