Many of you have probably already heard about VoIP, or voice over
IP. This is a technology that allows you to make telephone calls
using the internet. With VoIP you can save money on your monthly
bill, get inexpensive or even free long distance, plus get loads
of extra services without any additional cost. Unless you have
lots of time to explore the more than 1100 VoIP providers that
exists today, you will probably want to simply decide between two
choices: Vonage or Skype.
In the world of VoIP you have two basic options; you can get the
"regular phone replacement with lower monthly phone bills" option
(Vonage) or you can get the "plug a phone into my computer and it
costs me nothing" option (Skype).
If you go for Vonage, everything works pretty much like it works
today with your home phone. The main differences are:
1) Your phone bill is somewhere between 15$ to 25$ a month.
2) You get inexpensive long distance rates, free if you are
talking to another customer who uses Vonage.
3) You get a bunch of features included in the price.
(VoiceMail, Call Forwarding, Caller ID, Call Waiting etc..)
4) You have a "box" that sits between your computer and your
internet connection. (This box will cost you 50$ to 100$)
You will keep your current phone number. You will have 911
service, FCC has mandated that VoIP providers such as Vonage
provide full 911 service by ~November, 2005. You will have a nice
web interface to all your fancy new phone features. You will get
some pretty good customer service. If you want to keep your
regular phone wiring you can do that too, though you will need
to be a bit of a handyman type.
On top of this, you get some nifty extra benefits. For example,
if you travel frequently you can take your "box" with you, plug
it into any internet connection, plug a phone into the box and
it's like you are sitting at home with your telephone!
Finally, Vonage is a reasonably large, aggressive company. This
means they want your business and they are willing to fight for
it. You can expect their prices to be competitive and to remain
competitive. For more information you can go to their web site
http://www.vonage.com/ Don't forget that you must have a high
speed internet connection to use Vonage or Skype.
Now, if you go for the "plug a phone into my computer and it
costs me nothing" option then you want Skype. Skype is free,
Skype is easy to use and Skype works. All you have to do
is download, install and start using it. It is completely
painless. If you are like me, you will start using Skype because
you want to stop paying for long distance. My mother lives in the
Czech Republic. In the Czech Republic it costs a lot of money to
call North America. I told her to get Skype, now she calls me all
time and it doesn't cost us a penny.
After you get used to paying nothing for long distance, you will
begin discovering some of Skype's other options. As of June, 2005
Skype has the following options:
1) You can get Skype Voicemail for ~19$ a year (that is about
~1.50$ per month)
2) You can call almost any phone number on the planet for 2 cents
a minute, half of what Vonage charges in many cases! (Skype to
Skype calls are always free)
3) You can get an incoming phone number for around ~39$ a year
(that is only 3.50$ per month and they throw in voicemail for
free! Remember, unlike Vonage which gives you a phone number when
you agree to pay the 15$-25$ a month, Skype starts you off for
free but will only give you a phone number when you start paying
them 3.50$ a month. I started off using Skype for free since I
was only making Skype to Skype calls at first)
4) You get a bunch of features included for free (conference
calls, Caller ID, Call Waiting ...)
5) There are tons of add-ons (also know as plug-ins) for Skype,
many of them are free. You can get a Skype Answering machine, you
can have Skype integrated into Microsoft Outlook or you can even
start Podcasting with Skype. All Skype add-ons can be found at
http://www.summitcircle.com/
6) There are lots of Skype communities. You can meet people for
fun and conversation, you can even meet people to learn new
languages.
7) Last, but not least, Skype has instant messaging and file
sharing.
Once you get going with Skype you will find that it starts to
grow on you. I haven't replaced my regular phone with Skype, but
it has become my second phone line and I use it frequently.
However, Skype does not have 911 service, nor would I expect
it to have 911 service until ~2007. Skype does not have great
customer service. To be fair, they are growing really fast. They
are getting 150,000 new users everyday, can you imagine trying
to have great customer service when you are getting 150,000 new
users signing up every single day?
Nonetheless, if you are like me you will find that Skype is the
easiest choice to make. I wasn't ready to cancel my home phone
and I wasn't ready to commit to paying a company a monthly fee, I
simply wanted to stop paying for long distance. After that I got
hooked!
If you are interested in Skype, then download Skype for free at
http://www.skype.com/
Once you have Skype, you can find a Skype phone, add-on or
community at http://www.summitcircle.com There you will find all
the Skype add-ons (or plug-ins) that you want, you will find
links to dozens of different Skype phones along with reviews and
comments by users and you will find links to all the different
Skype community sites on the web.
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