I'm pretty electronics savvy but I must admit, I have missed the VoIP boat. Until I did research for a recent article, I had no idea what VoIP was, in fact, I didn't even know how to pronounce it. This is a technology that isn't going away for awhile so I think we all better sit down for a little VOIP 101... First of all, how do you pronounce VoIP? Vee-oh-eye-pee" surprised? Yeah so was I. I thought you pronounced it as it is spelled, my bad. And what is VoIP anyway? VoIP stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol" okay, I know what the internet is but what about protocol? According to Wikipedia, when pertaining to communications and commuting protocol is: a set of rules governing communication between electronic devices. So basically VoIP is a way for our voices to be carried over the internet, an internet telephone! VoIP has become really popular over the past couple of years because it is so much cheaper than making phone calls from a traditional land line. As VoIP's popularity has grown so has the number of VoIP services available and costs continue to decline. When VoIP first appeared, almost 10 years ago, the quality of VoIP phone calls was bad. This poor audio was due to slow internet eservices available at the time. As internet providers have increased speed so has the quality of VoIP, along with its popularity. VoIP phones working with a broadband connection allows conversations to have no loss of sound quality at all but VoIP calls through anything less than a DSL speed modem will be of poor quality, with annoying drop outs, in other words, don't bother if you don't have DSL. VOIP is much cheaper than traditional calling with most VoIP service providers saving people anywhere from 30% to 80% off their phone bill. Look for plans that offer unlimited calling for one low monthly fee, usually less than $25 per month. You can even use your normal telephones when they are hooked into special adapters that will connect to your internet connection. A quick online search will turn up dozens of VoIP service providers, the most popular being Vonage, Packet 8 and and AT&T. Because this is new technology, there are lots of new entries every month so do a comparison before you sign up. I guess VoIP is here to stay, from what I can see, there are no drawbacks. If you are looking to lower your telephone costs, and jump into this great new technology check into VoIP.
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