Why should I (or not) switch to VOIP?

Question

Right now I pay about $50 a month with no long distance or international on my standard phone line. I see some companies like Vonaye charge $24. Can you recommend a company that is cheap but great quality? What is the advantage of having VOIP and some of the disadvantage? Is there something out there that is free? I live in Miami and hurricanes and power outages are a big deal..just to keep in mind.

Answer 1

A lot of cable companies now offer VOIP service, My cable provider is Cablevision with the Optimum voice triple play.   We are very happy wtih it as there is pay one price for total unlimited calling with some pretty advanced calling features. There is now available a battery back up for the cable modem which will keep your phone line alive for up to 4 hours. International calling is only $20 more a month with 250 minutes to ANY country in the world. The call quality is perfect as line as you have clean connections to your modem and to where your modem line connects into the wall etc..... The modem itself also power all the phone jacks in the house so it really does look like your old time traditional service.

  My co worker has Vonage and swears by it, I believe his setup is similiar to my cable telephone service. We dont worry about long distance any more in any respect. Yes Grandma does call overseas a lot and we end up buying more minutes but I am still very Happy wtih my VOIP. Plus they still have 911 dialing so no worries there.

Answer 2

There is only one reason to use VoIP:

To save significant money over what Ma Bell and her Baby Bells charge for local and long distance phone calling.

Because of your concerns over power outages and reliability in emergency, VoIP may not be the best option for "home phone replacement" service.  That said, I use a UPS with battery power backup to power my Internet Modem, Router, ATA adapter, and cordless phones.  But, that is only reliable for short-term power outages.

For very low-cost "home phone replacement" VoIP service, I use InPhonex "LiteLine".  It only costs 7.95/month for phone number with unlimited incoming calls + 911 + 2.5 cents/min for all outgoing calls local & long distance anywhere in USA/Canada/UK, etc.  All bells & whistles included... And, most important.... No Contracts, no committments, no obligations, no fine print requirements... only Pay-As-You-Go, quit any time.

I also use CallCentric as my backup VoIP home phone replacement service, with lower rates.  But, it's BYOD and you have to be techy enough to configure your own ATA phone adapters.  I use Linksys PAP2T VoIP ATA and configure InPhonex on line 1 and CallCentric on line 2.

But, if you don't want to risk pulling the plug on your PSTN landline, then ony use VoIP for long distance calling from your PC.  You can save significant money calling world-wide over your PC using any of the following VoIP services over PC:

Skype,  Gizmo Project,  Yahoo Voice,

MediaRing Talk,  PcCall,  Efonica,

Hotfoon,  Raketu,  TPad,  VBuzzer

CallCentric Softphone,  InPhonex Softphone

Packet8 Softphone

As far as voice quality goes using VoIP.... I would say it  rarely has much to do with your service provider.  VoIP travels over Internet and many, many factors can affect voice quality.  It can vary from day to day and be affected by your equipment and configuration settings, etc.  Many people have problems with voip because of numerous technical issues.  But, for me.... I like the challenge and am willing to do what it takes to not pay outrageous prices charged by the big Bells, etc.....