Ten Reasons Why You Should Switch to VoIP at Home

Are you are a consumer? Do you have or want Internet access at home? If so, you may want to grab your calculator to add up all the things you can get with VoIP while reducing your monthly recurring charges for telephone and Internet access. The reasons to switch to VoIP at home are monthly savings, more services, piece of mind, and much more. Here, we list the ten best reasons to make the switch.

One Carrier

How many times have you had to call your telephone carrier about one problem, your cable company about another problem, and your Internet access provider about yet another problem? Wouldn’t it be nice to have just one provider with one telephone number?

One provider means that all your services are handled in the most expedient way. And you don’t have to give up your POTS telephone service. You can continue to run your POTS line as part of your broadband services; in fact, you need to keep a POTS line if you’re using DSL for your broadband access. Keeping your POTS line costs only about $25 per month, and your broadband provider may make you an even better deal if you bundle your POTS line together with your broadband Internet access.

One Bill

Working with one carrier means that you get one bill each month. If you have the DSL form of broadband, there is a surcharge for interstate carrier services that amounts to about 20 percent of your POTS line bill (approximately $5). Want to know why you need to pay the surcharge, even if you are using VoIP for your interstate calls? You’ll need to ask your state and federal regulators; they are the ones who levy the surcharge. Unfortunately, we all have to pay the surcharge even though we may not use or even have a POTS line with interstate services on it.

Free Local Service

Even though you can’t get away from some regulatory surcharges, there is a way to offset the costs. Remember that you get free unlimited access to the local calling area over your POTS line. Therefore, if you use the POTS line for local calls and 911 calls, and VoIP for all other calling, you have no recurring telephony charges. The monthly savings, in most cases, more than offsets any surcharges you may need to pay.

Reduced or Eliminated

Toll Service Charges If you rack up a lot of minutes outside your local calling area, VoIP saves you a bundle of cash. You can use your VoIP service to make all your far, far away calls and pay nothing for carrier charges.

Reduced International Toll Charges

If you make lots of international calls, VoIP is a way to greatly reduce the perminute charges. The per-minute rates are reduced by a factor of ten or more compared to traditional carrier charges, depending on the country that you are calling. And you can call Canada for free with most VoIP plans.

More Bandwidth

If you are using a dialup modem to gain Internet access, you have one or more traditional POTS lines for telephony service. (You need a POTS line to hook up your modem.) The speed you get is excruciatingly slow compared to broadband. The bandwidth with broadband service is many times greater than with a dialup modem over a POTS line.

VoIP allows you to put all your telephony services on a single broadband account. You can keep one POTS line (your broadband carrier may provide one in your service bundle) for local calls and emergency purposes. You simply plug your POTS phone into the adapter box the carrier provides.

Enhanced Internet Access

Sure you get more bandwidth with broadband, but you also gain access to the entire Web. Everything from shopping on the Net and e-commerce to research and e-mail are now at your fingertips. Stay connected with your friends, your family, and your co-workers. Start a Web page; broadband providers often give customers Web site space for free. (Perhaps you can start a sideline business.)

Using VoIP, you can call people up wherever they may be located and talk as long as you want. You can even have a conference call and do instant messaging over the computer while the conference is going on. Broadband opens a whole new world for you; take advantage of it. Save money, gain services and features, and enjoy the good life.

More Ports to Connect More Phones and Computers

Getting broadband service does more than add VoIP telephony into your picture. It puts a piece of equipment (the cable or DSL modem) on your premises that lets you connect a multiport hub. Into this hub, you can plug several other devices (such as multiple computers or game machines), all of which can use the broadband line. One broadband line, many broadband services.

Wireless Broadband Service in Your Home

With broadband Internet access, you can plug in a wireless hub that gives you Internet and VoIP access without the need to run wires to your computer, provided your computer has wireless capability. With such capability, there is no longer a need to be tethered to the broadband box. If you have VoIP soft phone software, you can use the computer to connect to your wireless network and make VoIP calls.

Videoconferencing

Full-motion videoconferencing is now possible over broadband lines. Broadband connections provide enough bandwidth to support all your VoIP calling, your POTS line that runs over your broadband line, and your Internet access. You can now add videoconferencing. You must purchase a video phone; the price range is $100 to $300. The phone plugs into your broadband provider’s equipment and uses the same protocol software that VoIP uses.