OK I will firstly agree that VoIP is really good technology and after while we will all use it and VoIP is in fact the only thing that endangers casual phones that is land lines or as they usually call it in USA is POTS which stands for the Plain old telephony service.

Now I will say more about VoIP itself. Firstly VoIP stands for the Voice over Internet Protocol. Also to VoIP people usually refer as IP telephony or even Internet Telephony. So how basically VoIP works. When you call from computer or VoIP telephone to other computer or VoIP telephone. Firstly you use certain software or client that is provider of the VoIP service and from your computer call another user then this signal is connecting you over the internet depending on client you use it connects you to the common server and then routes you to the other users computer however if you are calling from computer to the landline your call is routed to the network of casual telephone operator and then to the plain old telephone service after that your call is routed either to the usual phone or mobile phone.

In case that you are calling from usual phone to other usual phone over VoIP it works like this. Firstly you signal gets transferred to the internet converter for telephony then it is routed to router and then it goes on the internet after it finds appropriate network of usual telephone operator and then to plain old telephone service and to the usual phone or mobile phone.

If by any chance you’d like to do something in reverse of these three cases then technology works in reverse way.

Currently the biggest commercial service is Vonage and which in fact has more then 5 million users and 1 million of them is almost always on the internet. In Europe mostly popular non commercial is Skype which in fact is first service of this kind has approximately 220 million users out of which 5 million is online any time and this is on average. Though Skype has many commercial aaaaabilities and by such you can pay and recive ability to call any number anywhere and you can also pay to send messages to have your answer machine on skype and other. You can download it from the www.skype.com Also they have their test server in the England. And also it allows sending documents and files and you can chat with anyother user ofcourse if they are ready to chat with you. Here we come to one of the biggest advantages of VoIP in comperisson with PoTS. Because it allows more services though it has many disadvanatages.

OK let’s say something about about PoTS that is plain old telephone service. Eventhough most people think that this is analog way of working it is not because you ages ago everything has been digitalized. That is service station is long ago digitalized. Though you might not notice this because everything works on frequency of about 8000, and this in fact make you think that it is still analog. Procedure of passing data in this way is called circuit switching. So here is another basic difference between plain old telephone service and voice over internet protocol. If you are talking over the phone that is land line to other phone you have one channel reserved just for you. However, if you are talking over VoIP you are getting part of the bandwidth and if it is congested then you cannot have nice signal. But this have some advantages and disadvantages in case of congested plain old telephony service is better however, in case when there is no contact that is persons who are communicating don’t talk then bandwidth will be preserved this protocol that supports is called pocket switching.

Also there is one more difference in case of voice over internet protocol everything spoken is then digitalized and compressed and send in pockets eventhough each pocket is less then 100 miliseconds difference can be observed.

The biggest difference again of voice over internet protocol is that it is a lot cheaper in comparison to the plain old telephone service.

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Yes i think its the best one as u have to initailly pay only 10euro and then u can make a no. of free calls on land line to many countries.Its good for a peron who is into business of imports & exports and he can discuss in lenth with the buyer or seller and top of it even when u make paid calls its cheap,If you feel any other service better then this then please do let me know...I will be thankfull to you.

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VOIP is cheaper,and you usually get additional features at no extra cost.

I have VOIP and the only con that I can think of is that once in a blue moon , the incoming phone quality is not stellar. I use Sunrocket. It is &199 for a year with unlimited calling is the U.S. and Canada.

You also get great features such as free unlimited space voice mail box, like you cell phone, it is accessible from anywhere in the would, by phone or by the internet, if your away form home. Also it comes with free caller ID. There are also other calling options.

Moreover,VoIP all the more great!

If you have a router with QoS, it will automatically put the priority oh H.323 (voip) packets ensuring that even tho other people are using the internet connection, the voice quality is crystal clear!

My friends company has this implemented currently, with 2 phones in Florida, one in California, and one in North Carolina. The call quality in general (for us) is better than a land line. The only bummer is that if the power goes out, the phone goes out too! Unless you have battery backup for your phone and internet connection devices (router, modem, etc.).

I would definitely recommend getting VoIP, since at some point, we'll all have it anyway. Everything is going to eventually go the route of Fiber to the premises...no more copper telephone lines!

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Skype and Talky must be Legal well at least Skype. I have been using skype since it was launched when there were just over 100 users and have watched it grow over the years. and yes, it is frustrating when they bring out offers for new sign ups which we never got as pioneering members or users.

One thing I have noticed though is that prices for calls to landlines and mobile phone /cellphones are getting cheaper naturally calling within their network would be free because thats their marketing tool so that if you can make free calls to your cousin in say Australia you will by word of mouth advertise and convince them to sign up to skype for the free calls and your cousin will inturn let his freinds know about the free calls and that way their signup list increases. This is all in the faith that at some point as they get addicted to using skype they will slowly start using skype out to make calls to landlines and mobiles because it is said to be cheaper and at the end off the day it will be more income for Skype since you, your cousin and all his freinds and their cousins will be making call to landlines on skype.

The quality is impressive but I would say they can improve but obviously they are bound to blame your connection speed and ISP if you have interference and stuff. But then i always ask myself shouldnt they have the best quality for what they have in terms of speed say 512kb broadband that way if users have greater than that its a bonus...

Theres only one way to find out how good skype or other VoiP services are and that is to donload and signup and use them. Good luck

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The one problem that I found with Skype is that it is TOO bandwidth efficient: sometimes you get bad audio because it is only using a hundreth of your bandwidth, and also as a result, video calling suffers very badly: (even MSN live messenger can beat Skype if you know what you are doing!!)

Better would be a service which allowed you to set how much bandwidth you would prefer to use, and as a result get quality based on that....anyone know a decent one?

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