Email has brought with it the ability for friends and families to contact each other from almost anywhere in the world, without costing a penny. However, on occasion, a phone call is the only thing that will do and then you can incur a hefty bill for just a few minutes’ contact. In addition, there can be delays and echoes on the line, which can reduce what should be a pleasant or important conversation to an exercise in shouting and repeating yourself. Thankfully, the technology that brought us email is now being used to bring us free and cheap calls to virtually anywhere on the planet, in the form of Voice Over Internet Protocol – or VoIP.
Making free calls across the Internet is relatively easy to do, but does offer some restrictions. In order for you to contact someone, you both need to have a PC. In addition, you will need a speaker, a headset and a microphone and both parties will generally need to be using the same VoIP providers’ software, such as Skype. Using the Internet to make free phone calls, as opposed to a traditional phone line, does mean that your call does cost nothing, although it means that you and the person you are calling both need to be at your computers at the same time. In addition, you my find that the sound quality is inferior to that of a conventional phone and that the connection does have a tendency to break up. This method does allow you to call landlines and mobile phones, but that’s when you start incurring charges.
VoIP providers offer a much more popular and dependable method. While this doesn’t offer you free calls, it does mean you can make cheap international calls, at a set monthly tariff. In effect, you are paying for the countries you want to call, not the frequency with which you call them, giving you a fixed fee at the end of each month, with no nasty surprises. This is likely to be of particular interest to people who may have friends or family living abroad and even small businesses who need the ability to make cheap phone calls, both locally and internationally, without breaking the bank. There is also the benefit of not having to buy any extra equipment, such as headsets and speakers. A VoIP provider can simply send you an adapter that connects your traditional telephone to your broadband modem / router; that also means that your telephone will effectively be turned into a VoIP phone, regardless of the computer being switched on or off.
While these cheap calls may not come free, with a VoIP provider, you can be assured of a certain level of service that you can’t guarantee when using the PC to PC system. The sound quality of your call will be indistinguishable from a regular telephone and you can call landlines and mobiles, whether they are subscribed to the same VoIP provider or not.
Technology is improving all the time and VoIP technology is making the world a smaller and less expensive place to contact.
Author Resource:-
Costas Kariolis – Online Marketing Manager of Vonage UK (http://www.vonage.co.uk). Vonage are leading VoIP providers for home & small business users. Offering cheap international calls and free international calls to landlines via an internet phone service for a set monthly fee.
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