The Communications
Consumer Review

How To Choose VoIP Internet Telephone Providers

VoIP is a means of communicating by telephone service through your internet connection instead of the phone company. It's actually been around for a few years now, mostly used for business applications. But these days, VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is rapidly catching on with most consumers as well.

There are generally two kinds of VoIP to consider, either hardware or software based. If you choose the hardware option, you'll receive a converter box that is called an ATA that converts the analog signal from your phone to a digital signal to be sent over your high speed internet connection. The main advantage to a hardware VoIP solution is that your computer does not have to be on in order for you to make phone calls, although your internet connection will have to be active. With a software solution, you'll have to have your computer turned on in order to make and receive phone calls, and use a microphone instead.

More and more companies are jumping into the VoIP fray now, and so consumers have more choices than they have ever had in the past for VoIP service. Several comparison reviews have been conducted by various leading magazines including PC World, Entrepreneur magazine, and Business Week.

Some of the VoIP companies that have fared best in these comparisons are AT&T's CallVantage, Packet8, and Comcast Digital Voice. All three of these companies got high marks for sound quality, features, and competitive pricing.

Vonage is the most popular VoIP service at this point, and was found to have good overall service, although call clarity and quality was not quite up to the standard of the first three mentioned.

So what can you expect to get with VoIP service? Well, most unlimited calling plans start at around $25 per month, and is free of many of the taxes and regulatory fees that are common with telephone companies. You can get unlimited calling plans for less, but reviews seem to indicate that you often get what you pay for with these plans, as the cheapest ones seem to do poorly in customer service. If you like to make a lot of international phone calls, you may also want to consider BroadVoice VoIP, as a supplement to your current phone service plan. They offer unlimited calls to most of Europe, Australia, China, and parts of South America for only $20 per month, although call quality is only average.

In general, installation of most VoIP services can be difficult at times, so you can expect to spend some time on the phone with customer support as you get your service up and running, but you can expect most VoIP services to operate fairly trouble free from then on.