VoIP saving money

Web telephony or Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is a money saving alternative over traditional telephony, and has always been lucrative for Internet surfers. It takes voice signals and packages them into digital parcels, which are sent over the Internet at no extra cost. These packages are then unscrambled in your computer, so what is essentially a data transmission again becomes a voice call. One way of getting VoIP is by using software, which sets up a digital phone on your computer, also called a softphone. Your computer must have a microphone, speakers or a headset, or a USB phone. You can then make free PC-to-PC phone calls using a Internet Telephony provider like Skype in Europe or Vonage in the US. This method of VoIP requires users at both ends to be subscribers to the same provider.

Other VoIP services like VoicePulse provide users with adapters to hook up their phones to their existing broadband connections. They offer unlimited local and long-distance calling for as little as about $16 a month. Naturally the cable and phone companies weren't happy about this and began offering their own digital phone services. The first was AT&T, the largest U.S. long-distance provider, in 2003. About half the USA's 3 million VoIP customers now get their service from cable companies.

The problem with VoIP is there are still some quality issues at peak times, like voice delay. Plus you don't get all of the advantages unless the person you are calling is also using VOIP. Because so few companies and people out there are using the technology, most businesses don't consider it necessary to shift, even though VoIP saves lots of money in the long run.

You don't need a PC to make VoIP calls. Phones like the the Siemens Gigaset S685IP (above) connect directly to the Internet using Wi-Fi and Ethernet. At the back of this wall-mountable box are the power and analogue landline phone connectors, while the Ethernet connector is at the side.

VoIP has been most successful in the mobile phones market. The phones must have a software called Session-Initiated Protocol, which enables the digital exchange of voice data. Unfortunately only a fraction of handsets come with SIP and there is resistance from telecom companies to lettign consumers find alternative money saving ways of making phone calls. Jaxtr has launched the Jaxtr-on-the-go service that lets people make calls from their phones even if it's a mobile without Web browsing or a POTS landline.