The Advantages of IP Telephony

VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) technologies acquire more and more attention from the part of phone companies, businesses and individual users. VoIP has a lot of advantages over traditional phone systems but of course VoIP is a new technology that requires further improvements. VoIP becomes accepted as reliability grows. Tendencies show that IP telephony will finally replace the existing phone services and a lot of companies have already started to use the benefits of VoIP services.

But what is the underlying cause of the increasing popularity of IP telephony?

The advantages of VoIP services include:

1. The main benefit that attracts multiple customers is the cost of phone calls over IP and to be more precise almost a complete absence of fees for international and long distance calls that are charged so high by phone companies. If you have a broadband Internet connection (cable or DSL) you need to pay only for your internet connection and then you can organize computer-to-computer phone calls without additional charges. However if you wish to place a call to a phone from your PC your VoIP service provider is likely to charge it but nevertheless this fee is much lower than that charged by phone companies. Another option is to sign up with a VoIP service provider and purchase a monthly calling plan. Unlimited calling plans allow making unlimited calls to the subscribed geographic areas for a fixed monthly fee. Some calling plans are limited but they are usually charged cheaper.

2. Portability of the VoIP number contributes to the list of advantages of VoIP. Wherever you have an access to broadband Internet connection you can sign up with your VoIP account and make and receive phone calls to your VoIP number. That is the same as with e-mail: you have access to your account with your contacts from any part of the world.

3. If you use IP phones or conventional phones with ATAs (Analog telephone adapter)/VoIP adapters you can 'carry' your phone number with you either. In fact, you can take your IP adapter or IP phone with you as VoIP phones and ATAs are small and easily portable. To be able to use your VoIP services from another part of the world you should plug your IP phone into a broadband connection and that's all.

4. A lot of features charged by phone companies are included into VoIP packages without additional fees:
Caller ID
Call waiting
Call forwarding
Voicemail
Three-way calling