Traveling with VoIP
By admin | November 20, 2008
The vast array of features that VoIP has to offer allows the technology to be used in a myriad of ways. One advantage VoIP telephony has over traditional phone service is its ability to travel with you. By this, we mean that with VoIP you can travel locally or internationally and keep the same number, move house and have no break in service or simply go on vacation and have your same number and features. Cell phones can potentially fill this niche, however it is expensive to have a service that will work internationally and when moving house or going on vacation there is no guarantee that there will be coverage at your new location.
VoIP offers a number of features that not only allow you to travel but will make it an advantage to take your VoIP phone with you rather than say a cell phone or pay those expensive hotel rates. Below we will introduce a few of these features.
First, you must find a plan that that has the travel global feature. Use our advanced search to see all the Service Providers that support this feature. This feature, allows you to take your IP ready phone or ATA and plug it into any broadband connection around the world and you will have the same service and features you are accustomed to at home. This can be extremely useful to you when visiting family abroad as I do. I take my VoIP phone with me and stay in touch for free. Having the same phone number also means that you can easily be reached and there are no surprise phone charges for the people who call you. Not something you are likely to see with a cell phone plan.
For business users Call transfer is an extremely beneficial feature. This allows you to transfer a call you have already answered to another number. Effectively you are taking your office network with you. Again this feature is not available with your standard Cell phone but does came as standard with most VoIP plans.
PC to Phone or sometimes referred to as softphone can be a cheaper alternative or more convenient than traveling with an ATA or an IP ready phone. A simple software download and you can turn your PC into your telephone. You will still have all the features of VoIP but you will use your laptop to make and receive calls. For business travelers you are almost guaranteed a phone service from anywhere in the world, excellent value for money at $10 a month.
The above features are network features in that they depend upon the Service Provider you choose. However, the introduction in recent years of the IP ready phone, which has the ATA built in, offers consumers a whole host of new features and applications. The Video Phone is one such application that is becoming more and more common place. Video over cellular networks such as TDMA, GSM, GPRS, EDGE or even 3G networks have proved problematic. Only when using 3G networks is it realistically possible and that then depends on the number of people sharing your wireless bandwidth. If you take into account the size of 3G cell phones, video becomes impractical. With VoIP, as you are using a broadband internet connection, you are guaranteed the bandwidth to have good resolution video.
VoIP is expanding at an exponential rate and with its protocol well defined, it promises the integration that has been promised but has never been realized with the cell phone industry. New standards like WI-MAX are well suited to VoIP and several service providers have been testing their service using this new standard. The future of VoIP is well assured, and perhaps it won’t be long before you are carrying your IP ready phone rather than a cell phone and battery charger.
This article highlights some of the many benefits of having a VoIP broadband phone service. Use our free VoIP plan search engine to select the best VoIP phone plan for your families needs, and start saving today.
WhichVoip.com is based in Seattle, WA. The company is run by experts in the VoIP and telecommunications field, who utilize their knowledge to ensure consumers understand VoIP and, choose the best VoIP solution available to them.
Tags: broadband phone, VoIP, VoIP Phone, VoIP Plan, VOIP Providers, VoIP Reviews, Voip service providersTopics: VoIP | No Comments »
Advantages and Disadvantages of VoIP Know Them Before Switching to VoIP Service
By admin | November 13, 2008
Today, more and more people are consciously making an effort to learn about Voice over Internet Protocol or VoIP. One thing that they all look for is whether or not VoIP can act as an alternative to the good ol’ telephone service, which has made such an impact in the lives. Can VoIP replace the humble telephone for good? One way to find out is to weigh the advantages and disadvantages of VoIP.
VoIP offers many advantages for you. Among them are:
1. VoIP is a whole lot cheaper compared to your normal landline telephone. With a residential VoIP plan you only need to pay about $9.95 for the most basic service up to about $39.95. For a business VoIP plan, the cost would be somewhere about $49.95 to $99.95 and comes inclusive with a separate fax number.
2. The VoIP “modem” (which is free) is delivered to you in only 5 to 10 days. Or you could buy it at your local store for same day service and get the VoIP provider to credit it against your bill.
3. The services which are considered as ‘extras’ in your regular landline telephone service, such as Caller ID, Call Waiting, Call Forwarding, Voice Mail, 3-Way Conferencing, Repeat Dialling, and Call Block are now standard services with your VoIP. In short, you don’t have to pay extra for these ‘extra’ services. They come free with the package, including the most sought after service: unlimited calling, either local or long distance.
4. With VoIP service, there is no charge for any incoming calls, which cannot be said for US cellular service providers. The same also holds true for outgoing ‘local’ calls, which depends on your talk plan.
5. With VoIP service in North America, ‘local’ is always inclusive of US, Canada, some countries in Western Europe, parts of Asia, and parts of Latin America. For countries which are not already included, there are international plans available which cost a lot less than that offered by the standard long distance services providers. Another way is for you to make occasional calls without a plan, but for far lower charges per-minute compared to the usual long distance plans. For VoIP services in Europe, Asia and elsewhere around the globe, this also applies (more or less) in reverse.
6. With VoIP service, you don’t need to have a computer. Just take your average phone cable from your VoIP modem and plug it into your regular desktop or portable phone.
7. With VoIP service, you can activate every phone jack in the house. First, disconnect your house internal phone wiring from the regular telephone service at the phone box outside (most probably on your front wall). Then, simply take the VoIP modem and plug it into any existing wall jack inside your house. However, this option is not available for those who live in apartments.
8. With VoIP service, you can choose your own virtual phone number in almost any area code that you wish for at a very low price (around $5). This way you can have friends and family dial a local number that will then ring on your phone. The drawback is that you can’t make outgoing calls, as it’s not considered as a ‘real’ line phone line.
9. With VoIP service you can have low cost 800 numbers. This way it will be free for people to call you and yet will not be too hard on your pockets. There are monthly rates fixed for you, but they vary according to the provider. Generally it could cost you about $5 for the first 100 minutes per month, and somewhere about 4.5 cents per minute beyond that.
10. Some VoIP service providers offer a service that could locate you called ‘Find Me’ at other numbers that you provide, either in sequence or simultaneously, should you fail to answer your call. If you still don’t answer, your call will then go to your Voice Mail which can be retrieved later.
11. And finally, the icing on the cake: You can take your home or office ‘phone’ with you wherever you go. Just bring your VoIP modem with you, and when you get to your destination, plug it into any high-speed internet connection. You could be in a hotel room in the Caribbean, at your friend’s or relative’s house in Paris or even at the airport. No matter where you are, one you’re plugged in, you can make as well as receive calls on your regular phone number. Charges are based on your home location. You could be in New Zealand and if anybody were to call your office or home number in Atlanta, they would never know that you’re not really there. And if you make calls, your regular caller ID still shows.
As with everything else, with advantages there are certain disadvantages, even for VoIP services:
1. If you utilise a cable connection for your Internet, your upline is 2 to 10 times slower than your downline. This means that, although you can hear crystal clear what the other person is saying, they may not necessarily hear you. This could lead them to hang up (as they don’t know you’re on the line), or to them telling you to call from a regular phone and to get off the speaker phone.
Even though VoIP companies insist that 256K should be sufficient for a clear signal, it does not seem to be the case. Thankfully there are ways to overcome this obstacle if you have a very knowledgeable VoIP support tech. Consult your VoIP service providers about this.
2. The quality of high-speed connections may vary, as it is dependant on many factors, including the number of other users on your cable line, or your distance from the nearest DSL booster node. This means that the VoIP quality may vary daily or during each call.
3. During your calls, when there is no one speaking, there is a silence that could lead the other person to think that the line has gone dead. This is especially true for those who have become so used to hearing a slight buzz when using a regular telephone. Instead of being bombarded with many people asking “are you still on the line?” you should first explain this silence that you will encounter at the very beginning of your conversation.
4. When using VoIP service, you may not be able to ‘activate’ a new credit card, as the computer at the other end will claim that you are not calling from a home phone. The reason for this is yet unknown as VoIP providers have yet to answer this.
5. While conversing, you should never allow anyone to put you on silent hold, as the VoIP service may disconnect you when it doesn’t hear anything. It assumes that you are no longer on the line, thus disconnecting you after a while.
6. If you have an upline signal that is not capable of relaying your call, and when you cannot get through, all that you’ll be hearing is a recording stating that “Your call cannot be completed at this time”, which can be very annoying if it happens often.
7. Sometimes, your VoIP service will just cease to work. How to solve this depends on your provider. Mostly it will take some unplugging and replugging of various connections: VoIP modem, router, cable connection, DSL connection. It all depends on your provider and the solution (and sequence) that they provide you with.
8. And finally, in what is the worst disadvantage among all, if you lose your Internet connection for whatever reason imaginable, you lose your telephone service. Should you decide to depend almost entirely on VoIP service, then you are strongly advised to have a cell phone with you at all times. This also works in your favour as you can set your VoIP service to call your cell automatically should you not answer your VoIP line.
The verdict? Commercial VoIP service is an actual telephone service, compared to the likes of messenger services (computer-based) or Skype (which insists that it is not a telephone service). Of course it has its disadvantages, it has no video (at the moment that is) and has some minor glitches. Yet these glitches can be put up with when you realize that you can save anywhere from $30 to $100 a month. These glitches may be a big issue if you plan to use VoIP for your office, but if you have a cell phone with you for back up, you’d have no problems at all. You may find yourself joining the huge number of users who have gone 100% VoIP, with the intention of never again using the telephone.
Juzaily Ramli is the owner of VoIP Tutorial website that discusses on all things VoIP including benefits of VoIP and business VoIP. Feel free to visit his site and discover how much everyone can benefit from this revolutionary technology.
Tags: benefits of voip, business voip, free voip, VoIP, VoIP Phone, voip service, voip tutorialTopics: VoIP | No Comments »
VoIP Good For The Home
By admin | November 3, 2008
VoIP has become extremely popular with the general public. TV and online adverts, news and paper headlines have aired this new technology heavily recently, furthering its overall success. If somehow you’ve managed to miss all this hype surrounding this recent computer related communications revolution the abreviation VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol or Voice over IP. This technology enables the user to talk with a phone/microphone over the world wide web connection.
Normal phone bills can be minimised by using VoIP since it boasts extremely low rates, considerably lower than conventional telephone, whether the calls being made are local or to the other side of the world. Large corporations are taking advantage of this fact massively by installing the necessary software and equipment, loosing the old requirement for traditional conference calls, many faxes etc, whilst incorporating such media tools as streaming video applications. The recent explosion in VoIP use has hidden the fact that this technology has been around for many years waiting to become economically viable.
In terms of families now wanting to give this exciting new improvement on phone communication a go, mostly this concept is a full gone conclusion people are going stir crazy about it. Do they believe all the hype about how it will hugely improve their everyday lives? Is this technology really as impressive, reliable and affordable as is often touted by the sales pitchers? Any unanswered questions alongside possibilities you may not have realised yet are provided here in this article aimed at furthering your understanding of this new VoIP technology. Once you’ve read everything here you may be more inclined to get out there and purchase then test run this communications system.
Initially an internet connection to your residence must be present! This connection must be a high speed one, any of the following varieties i.e. satellite, cable or DSL, not 56K dial up. VoIP can only function properly and transform into your new calling station by following this important advice. Quality loss is just far too significant when attempting to use slower connections such as 56K dial ups. These now fairly antiquated connections simply don’t have the speed or capacity required to transfer calls digitally. If DSL happens to be your choice of broadband service, and you’re hoping to replace your existing phone service with VoIP, a company known as SpeakEasy has just recently created a VoIP product that does’nt require any already installed phone line.
The second most important requirement is a ‘gateway’, needing to be connected between your ethernet modem and computer. Your phone line needs to be plugged into this VoIP gateway to then enable calling to be high quality, unhindered by any potential computer problems that may occur. Many computers have a variety of momentary unpredictable problems, e.g. slow memory or crashes which could significantly reduce quality calling time.
Adapters are available so that VoIP can fit any phone, old/ existing or new. Typically the promoters of VoIP provide sell adapters to reduce the time you may spend shopping around for one. Albeit a great money saving plan, not buying a new phone will probably mean you miss out on the next big VoIP move, video usage in combination with VoIP on phones, a trend that looks set to blow up everywhere. A company known as Packet8 VoIP sells a great video phone in addition to their usual services.
Phone services that have VoIP included typically contain the whole range of great offers and gadgets the current phone services provide. Details cover such aspects as three way calling, voice messaging, your own VoIP telephone number and call waiting.
Key aspects associated with this brazen new feature-full phone technology that you should be aware of are that local 911 emergency coverage exists. This feature may come as an additional extra charge on top of the basic package, hitting your wallet on a monthly basis. Don’t commit to a calling contract until you have ironed out all the costs associated with what ever deal you choose.
Lastly, remember that electricity is the fuel your VoIP system uses and the occasional power cut will unfortunately put a stop to its functioning, momentarily. This is the one small aspect that traditional phone calls don’t have to contend with, due in part to them containing their own small power supplies.
When thinking about obtaining VoIP first consult http://www.voipinternetphonecenter.com/Technology-Your-Business-A-Beneficial-Relationship.php for a huge variety of information e.g. voip for small business.
Tags: internet phone, internet telephony, voice over ip, VoIP, VoIP Phone, VoIP providerTopics: VoIP | No Comments »