VoIP Vs the Traditional Phone

VoIP is short for “Voice over Internet Protocol”. Also known as Internet Telephony, VoIP is the general term used to describe transmitting two-way voice over the Internet in real (or near-real) time. VoIP transmits voice in packets over data networks. With the promise of new features and low prices, VoIP providers want to replace regular circuit switch phone service for the millions of U.S. homes; the basic technical requirement being a broadband internet connection.

How is a VoIP internet phone different from our telephone?

Our traditional phone carries voice using analogue signaling over dedicated electronic circuits. The next generation saw digitized signals between exchanges. VoIP is a method by which the voice signal is digitized and then transmitted over the Internet in packets, in a similar manner to how an email with a sound file attachment is send over the Internet. Although Voice chats were famous for about 10 years now, it is only in the last few years that bandwidth, customer equipment, and protocols have provided us with a viable substitute for the PSTN.

How is a VoIP more advantageous than our local phone lines?

People are turning to VoIP. As of April 1, 2005, 1.8 million home VoIP lines were running in North America, says market tracker Point Topic. That's up nearly 40% from 1.3 million just three months earlier. The widespread use of broadband and the low prices for VoIP calls, almost always cheaper than conventional phone service have sparked the fast rise.

The biggest plus of VoIP services as opposed to traditional phone services, is its easy installation features and low cost. Most VoIP services charge as less as $25 for all the features (such as caller id, call waiting, conference facilities, and call transfer) while traditional phone service is pricey with separate tariffs for long distance and local calls.

Again, with VoIP services, the customer can opt to own virtual phone numbers in any place covered by the VoIP provider. That is, if you want your friends or peers in another state to be able to make calls to your VoIP phone without any additional cost or for a local call cost, all you have to do is to get a telephone number in that state and have the respective call routed to your ATA irrespective of your current physical location. By doing so, the maximum the caller may have to shell out for calling you will be the cost for a local call. This is a facility that is non-existent in the traditional phone services domain.

VoIP call service has many additional features over traditional phone services. Apart from the traditional add-on services like call waiting, voice mail, caller ID; VoIP offers video phone option, travel with your phone number, worldwide service (need high-speed Internet connection), no area code tied to geographic area and ultra-low or free International calls.

It is evident that VoIP is advantageous than traditional phones. However people should be very careful before choosing their VoIP service providers. Remember all service providers are not the best. One needs to keep in mind the difference in tariffs and schemes. Research well into the facilities offered by the players, cheap VoIP calls don’t mean great quality.

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