To Voip or not to Voip - That is the Question

If you're like me and always wanting to get in on the latest and greatest gadgets offered to the public, then you'll likely enjoy reading through my pros and cons on Voip telephones.

PROS:

• Most everything you read will tell you it's cheaper than the regular land lines. The reason for this is the way internet access is billed compared to regular telephone calls. Regular telephone calls are billed by the minute or second, but VoIP calls are billed per the amount of information or data sent over the internet.

• You can basically call for really cheap or even free using your internet connection and have calling plans that are half the cost of standard phone plans.

• Voip telephone adapters are available so you can use your current touch tone phone with your high speed internet connection to make voip calls. If you do this you won't have the out of pocket expense of a new voip gadget, except for the adapter.

• For business purposes VoIP also offers the advantage of running both voice and data communications over a single network which can represent a significant saving in infrastructure costs. In most cases, voip technology will have services not available on regular land line phones. These services might include the ability to check voice mail via the web, voice messages sent as an attachment in an e-mail.

CONS:

• In the area of reliability, your voip service is only as reliable as your internet connection. And in the case of a power outage you're probably at a very real disadvantage. However if you currently have a portable or wireless phone then you've experienced the same problem in an outage, so this may not be a factor in your decision.

• Here's an interesting "con"- voip telephone calls do not keep the parties connected throughout the conversation. Because your conversation is transmitted in "data packets" the connection is only made when the data needs to be sent or transmitted and it may sound like you're constantly being cut off.

• But the connection delay (caused by the distance the packets have to travel) and system congestion (caused because these voice and data packets travel over the same network with a fixed bandwidth) can be solved by teletraffic engineering. Don't expect me to explain that one…won't happen!

Now let's do a recap:

• We can buy an adapter and use our existing land line phones to call over our internet connection for cheap cheap cheap.

• If we find the right voip telephone service provider for this service we can have some cool services not available with our regular phone service.

• If the power goes out I'm dead in the water unless I have battery backup.

• My conversations using voip phones may sound intermittent but that can be solved with the right teletraffic engineering.

• And if I own a business this voip technology could save me some real bucks.

As you can see the pros seem to outweigh the cons, but don't let this fool you. You may want to check on the various service providers and types of phones available for yourself.

Michael Baxter suggests you do a little more research before you purchase a voip telephone. When you're ready to buy he recommends you get your voip telephones, adapters or accessories at voipphones411.info.