In today’s economy, ask where your expenses can be lowered. Have you already cut back on everything possible? What else is there to do? Well, I suggest that you look at your phone. No, this doesn’t mean you have to stop calling or limit usage of it. What you can do is change the type of service that you are using. Heard of VoIP?

VoIP might not be for you, but it has been a solution for A LOT of people. It is mainly for those who have to constantly worry about the long distant bill, or if international calls are part of your daily life.

VoIP phone service seems a little scary for some people, but its not scary at all. It turns out it’s our friend, and its here to help. Can you remember a time when you simply unplugged your phone, traveled 100 miles, plugged it back in and you are back on with the same phone number and service, but not the same location? Your customers or friends would never know you are at a different location.

A VoIP phone can be plugged in anywhere that an Internet connection is found. You can even get a phone with a different area code than the one you run your business at.

how voip works

Image courtesy of alibaba.com

Because of the competition nowadays for VoIP services, it pays to shop around. Some companies offer internet and VoIP packages, which can be great to save money if your business makes a lot of phone calls. Many services will offer combined solutions to both manage and monitor your call quality & internet connection.

Some minor problems that you might encounter with a VoIP phone: it will not work if your power goes out. Also, 911 is not included with all companies unless you pay a small additional fee. Depending on your internet usage at the time of a call, the quality of a call may be low. These being the drawbacks of VoIP, it’s not so bad. These days most cordless phones require a power source and  the same problem can occur if the power was to go out, most companies charge a minimal amount for 911 call service, (we are talking an amount less than $3.00). With the increasing popularity of VoIP, more and more companies are including 911 on their phone plans.

Finally, as long as you are leaving plenty of bandwidth for your phone conversations, you should have a very clear connection, (this means no downloading movies or anything that will take up most of your bandwidth during your phone conversation).

Try an internet speed test, which will tell you if you have connection capable of a VoIP conversation, or if you should consider upgrading.

VoIP works great for me, what about your experience with it?

Ana Guillen