Voice over Internet Protocol has gained immense acknowledgment in the corporate sector; VoIP service providers have established themselves in the business market. With the constant investment in research and development to further, improve the technology, conventional Local Area Networks (LANs) are being modified allowing them to encode and decode all types of data transmitted over the internet. Majority of the internet connections operate through the fiber optic infrastructure carrying much more traffic at higher speeds than ever before. With regard to the corporate sector, the next aim of VoIP telephony is to establish a networking structure that links up small and large businesses on one network that deals with data, video and voice.
Today, home users have established private local area networks connecting friends and family members. This allows them to transfer and share data with others. High bandwidth over the internet allows us to merge our home networks with VoIP services.
The question that arises is that why should one switch to residential VoIP services. If one examines the cost difference between residential VoIP services and traditional landline, cost factor itself is sufficient to force a traditional telephone line user to switch to VoIP services. Financial savings is one of the foremost significant factors of residential VoIP as opposed to communicating via using traditional copper lines. Some users have experienced savings up to 60%. Long distance calls are free or very cheap, depending on the package plan you purchase. The reason behind this is that long distance calls are routed through the internet and are switched to landline when the reach the switching stations, hence making the call look like a local call.
Now days all most all of the residential VoIP service providers offer free calls within the U.S and Canada along with additional one or two more destinations in Europe for instance. If you make calls to any other country besides the one in your package plan, the charges are as low as 1 or 2 cents per minute. However if you call on a cell phone then the rates become expensive, however they still will be further lower than the traditional telephone line rates. Countries that have nationalized the telecommunication sector, they tend to tax VoIP calls.
Now there are various VoIP service providers in the market to fulfill your residential telephony needs. Vonage, Packet8 and NetZero are one of the most popular residential VoIP service providers. NetZero offers one of the lowest plans with 100 minutes for $3.95, Vonage offer a 500 minute plan for $15 and with Packet8 you get unlimited minutes for $20.
Features like Caller ID, call forwarding, call waiting, voicemail and multiple user conferencing are standard with all most all of the providers, whereas they are charged by a telephone company. You can even purchase a toll free number for $5 a month.
One of the most interesting features that are offered by VoIP service providers is that you can virtual phone number. This means that if you are for instance in Chicago and you have friends and family in New York, calling via conventional phones is going to be costly as it will be a long distance calls. However with VoIP you can have New York area code line sitting in Chicago hence calling New York will no longer by a long distance call but a local call.
Your voicemail can be accessed for your email account anywhere in the world. VoIP allows you to take your number wherever you go for vacation this summer, all you need is an internet connection, your VoIP adapter and a handset or a laptop with a soft phone.
