It's easy to take your residential phone Landline for granted because you pretty much know how much your bill is going to be no matter how much you use it. Sure, long distance fees might inflate your monthly statement a bit, but when it comes to local calls, you never really think about how many minutes you use.
Companies providing Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) services know this very well, which is why they try to undercut the big phone companies by including extra services at lower prices. By its own design, VoIP is very different from the traditional landline because it uses broadband Internet connectivity to make and take calls. Your laptop or desktop computer effectively becomes the phone.
Except there are increasing variations on how VoIP can work for you. You can connect certain types of phones -- better known as "softphones" -- directly to the computer or home network and make VoIP calls that way. Others are completely software-based, or even hybrids of sorts, where you stick in a USB dongle into your computer and make and take calls that way.
MyVoipProvider.com is a great site for finding a long list of different VoIP providers from all over America.
Serious Contenders
One of the real beauties of VoIP is that there are a lot more providers than you might realize. Moreover, you could just as easily be a customer with an international provider as well. MyVoipProvider.com has a list of 100 top providers that hail from countries like, Canada, Greece, Britain, Germany, Spain, Argentina, South Africa, Australia and many others.
Some of these foreign companies will offer packages for American customers. But if you have a relative in a foreign country you can get plenty of options on how to save money for both sides. Most, if not all, VoIP providers can offer you more than one phone number, depending on what package you want to sign up for. You have your own local number, but you could also add a local number in, say, Paris or Sydney. Even within the U.S., if you live in Florida, and you have a close friend living in Los Angeles, it would be possible for you to get a local L.A. number so that your friend never pays a cent in long distance charges.
Going through all the different options would take a lot more than this article, but there are some providers offering good deals.
CallCentric offers a great North American plan that costs $19.95/month. You get access to all of the U.S., including Alaska, Hawaii and Puerto Rico, as well as all of Canada in this package — both landline and cell phones. You also get a bunch of free features, like Caller ID with name, Call Waiting, Caller ID blocking, Voice Mail and several others. You can also call to anyone internationally but there are separate rates for that, all of which is detailed for you on the site. As with any VoIP provider, calls between CallCentric customers are free, no matter where in the world the callers might be.
Lingo has some cool plans for different regions, depending on where you might call most. For example, if you have relatives in Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro, you can talk to them for free with Lingo's "LatAm" plan (you pay about 2.9¢/minute when calling outside a few of the major Latin American cities).
But the "Chatter Box" package looks pretty decent on paper, especially since you get 30 days to try it out. Lingo does give you the option of porting over your existing landline number, so that it's an easier adjustment for friends and family. With this plan, you get unlimited calling to all of the U.S. (including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico and U.S. Virgin Islands), 17 countries in Western Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea. They throw in tons of features and you get the whole package for $21.95/month.
Not a bad deal at all, but the one catch is that calls to cell phones outside of the U.S. will be charged at Lingo's regular long distance rates, even if the person you're calling is in one of the countries covered by the plan.
Ones Worth Watching
Phone.com (a play on words for "Phone.Company") has an interesting package for residential users who just need something basic. There's an annual unlimited plan that costs $16.88/month or $202.56 for the year. You get free unlimited talk time that includes all the extras like Call Waiting, Caller ID, Call Forwarding and a slew of others. But you'd have to pay all of that up front, or else pay $2 more per month if you prefer to pay every 30 days.
If you don't plan on using the line all that much, then you can opt for the "Monthly 200" plan that limits you to 200 minutes per month (3.5¢/minute after that) for $9.88/month. Adding a second line to any of these plans costs an extra $2.88/month (not to mention the $4.95 activation fee for that), but you get access to all the same features no matter what you choose.
InPhonex has a number of plans that include pay-as-you-go options. For a prepaid fee of $9.95, you can install the free software to make calls using your computer. You can also take your account with you and make calls when traveling abroad (you'll need to have your laptop with the software with you though) by just dialing an access number.
The LiteLine plan is a very basic one for $7.95/month, meant as an add-on to your existing landline or cell phone. InPhonex also offers plans aimed at coverage for North America and Latin American countries. The most extensive of these is the $74.95/month "Americas Unlimited", which covers all of the U.S. (including Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico), Canada, Mexico, Panama, Venezuela, Peru, Brazil, Argentina and Chile.
Plenty of Choice
These are only a few options of many when it comes to both the providers and the types of plans that are currently available throughout the country. If you look more in-depth into MyVoipProvider.com, you'll be sure to find tons of other companies offering competitive plans. The range of choice also means it's likely you'll find a plan that suits you best.
Regardless of whether you're a student going away for school, or someone who just wants to adopt this kind of technology to keep in close touch with friends and family abroad, VoIP could very well be a solution for you.