Voice over Internet Protocol Telephony (the facts)

The acronym VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol. It’s a way of transmitting your voice as data, over an Internet connection. When you make a phone call now-a-days you may be using VoIP technology without even knowing it. Phone companies are aware of the advantages inherent in VoIP technology and are taking advantage of it. Even though you may not subscribe to VoIP service from your phone company, your phone company is using the technology in other areas to save the cost of of sending voice between their switching centres, for example. They use it to save money, why shouldn’t you?

VoIP can save you money on your monthly costs for phone lines. If you are currently paying $40 to $50 per line, per month and have at least 2 phone lines, you can expect to save at least $16.00 to $20.00 per month on the cost of your phone lines alone. That is the minimum; your savings will likely be HIGHER!

There are no hard and fast formulas for determining how much you can save. Typically however, we find that if you have at least 2 land lines from one of the major carriers such as Bell or Rogers in Canada, that you can save a minimum of 20% of what you are paying now to that carrier, just for the use of their lines. (You can have service from a VoIP provider with 5 lines, for $51.50/ month based on 80 hours of talk time and one phone number. Details below.)

For example, lets say that you have 4 lines with Bell and you pay $45/month for each line. That comes to $180/month for phone service with local calling included. With your current carrier, you might have a long distance package that will give you a reduced rate on non-local calls, but what we’re talking about here is savings on what you pay for line rental alone. If you figure in the savings on long distance, you will find that you will save more, because with our recommended VoIP provider all calls in North America are billed at 1 cent per minute.

Now, compare that to what you would pay for 5 lines, from one of the VoIP service providers we recommend. (Five lines are included in basic service.) With their basic service you can make and/or receive up to 5 phone calls at one time, which is equivalent to having 5 phone lines. Each phone number on your account is $3.50/month and each minute of talk time is 1 cent. Given a maximum monthly talk time of 80 hours for all phone users (not per user), that comes to $48.00/mo. + $3.50/mo. = $51.50 per month for 5 phone lines. Calls to anywhere in North America are 1 cent per minute, with no limit on the number of minutes at that rate. Additional phone numbers are only $3.50/month. Toll free numbers are $2.50/month and incoming calls to your toll free number are 2.9 cents per minute.

Usually. Occasionally you may need to upgrade your service to a higher speed and sometimes it is a good idea to provide an Internet service just for use of the VoIP system. The determining factor is call quality. If you will only be making/receiving no more than 3 calls at one time, then call quality should not suffer. This is something that can be worked out prior to the installation of the system, simply by determining the answers to a few questions. If, after answering the questions we determine that there may be an issue with your existing Internet service, a solution is possible in 95% of cases.

There can be problems if the installation is done incorrectly – that is the main reason for issues with VoIP. if the installation is done correctly and all of the necessary precautions are taken; if your data network is solid with no drop outs, you have quality network components and your Internet service is reliable and has enough bandwidth, then there should be no issues. Usually, any problems with voice quality will surface during the initial testing, before the new system is put into service and then the problems can be rectified. Once the initial issues are resolved then the system will be stable. There will be no call drop outs and no voice quality issues with a correctly installed VoIP system.