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What You Need To Know About Internet Phone Services
by Fawn Rawson
http://www.frphone.com
Imagine enhancing your business image with phone numbers in
New York City, Boston, San Francisco and Dallas. How much
would it lower your phone bill if your college son in in
Chicago could call you in Orlando - using a Chicago phone
number? How about international phone calls to Italy for 3
cents a minute?
Two of them, Lingo and Vonage, are new companies in the
business of communications. The other two are new services
offered by communications giants Verizon and AT&T. All of
them promise to give you unlimited long distance and local
phone service for prices ranging from $24.95 to $49.95 a
month.
What are the advantages of switching from a conventional
land line to VOIP service? The major advantage is cost. By
utilizing your high speed internet connection to carry voice
messages, you can virtually eliminate all long distance
charges. It will cost you no more to call from Boston to San
Francisco than it will to call from Boston to Worcester,
less than 100 miles away.
In addition, with the ability to keep your current phone
number, known as local number portability, you may be able
to keep one phone number for life. That same number
portability opens other options for customers. Want a
virtual phone number in Daytona Beach even though you live
in Oregon? You can do it. Want to list a phone number with a
local exchange in Dallas, Chicago and Seattle? It can be
done.
That means that if your son is attending college in Atlanta
and you live in Albequerque, New Mexico, you can add a
virtual phone number with an Atlanta exchange for as little
as $4.95 a month. That allows him to make a local call to
reach you, without costing you an arm and a leg in collect
call charges.
But is it any good? Sound quality, reliability, the works?
>From all reports, the sound quality and reception is akin to
that you can expect from a good cell phone. You'll have
occasional drops and hiccups, but no worse than you'd see if
you were using a cell and moving.
VOIP's major advantage at this point is cost. That pro is
countered by sound reception that isn't quite up to voice
line standards, and the inconvenience of losing your phone
service in case of a power outage.
However, the technology advances every day. Vonage, the
acknowledged independent leader in the field, reports new
subscribers at the rate of 1500 per month. That sort of
growth sparks further advances nearly every day. Expect that
VOIP will advance at least as quickly as the acceptance of
cell phones as a fact of modern life.
Can I use multiple phone extensions with my VoIP? It's
tricky, but it's doable. The easiest way is to use a
cordless phone with multiple handsets. Again, it's another
area that's being worked on, so expect that to change over
time.
The portability does come with some disadvantages, though.
911 services don't work with all VOIP phone services, for
example. Each service has its own policy, and even those
that do offer 911 availability don't offer the Emergency
Response system that we're used to. If you use your VOIP to
call 911, the operator will not have your location, for
instance.
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