I’m sure you’ve all heard the back and forth about it by now – that’s why I wanted to wait a little while before writing this column…it saves a little elbow grease on my part! No, no – seriously, I was actually holding off on this one not only because I wanted to see which way the tables would turn on a number of existing issues with Voice-Over-IP technology, but also because, being the geek that I am, I wanted to have a chance to test things out for myself before tossing my opinion out there and, for the record, I am certainly glad that I waited a little while!
To offer just a very brief highlights course regarding what VoIP exactly is for those who haven’t yet caught the fever, simply put – VoIP involves sending your telephone calls over the Internet, as opposed to the traditional copper wiring that lines the streets of nearly every suburban corner of the country. Now don’t get confused, as many attempted something along these lines a few years ago with various “Internet phones,” featuring loads of static and crackled connections at best…and one other thing, you had to physically be sitting in front of your computer to do so – who wants that?! The idea was kinda neat, but let’s face it – consumer America doesn’t want to have anything to do with IP addresses and trunk lag – just plug my phone into the wall and be done with it.
And that’s pretty much what they started doing last year, as you might remember a number of VoIP services popping up around springtime last year (about the same time as the rural phase of Local Number Portability came into effect, but we’ll talk about that next week). Vonage was one of the top players, throwing their hat into the ring first in hopes of scooping up the market share, and although I haven’t seen the numbers lately, I’ve got a feeling that they’re still pretty much at the top of their game. I didn’t end up going with them when I signed up a few weeks ago, for reasons that will be discussed later, but hands down, now consumers have a myriad of choices at their fingertips and unfortunately, it seems that some of them are jumping from Ma Bell’s ship just a little too quickly without reading all of the fine print…
One of the main issues, yet also features, with VoIP is that you’re not really tied to any specific location when using the service, as opposed to your traditional landline telephone which is located at a specific service address (usually your home or office). The plus of this scenario therein lies, for the frequent flier as an example, that he can bring his VoIP hardware (typically a small box no bigger than your standard cable modem) with him on the road and suddenly, anywhere he has Internet access – a hotel room, remote office, or even local wi-fi hotspot – he has his home telephone with him, or another number of his choosing. The number stays the same wherever he is in the country, so now our traveler’s wife and children have a local number where they can reach Dad on the road, without worry of wasting cell phone minutes. Pretty cool, eh?
Well, the other side of that coin is that obviously, if you’re not tied down to one specific location, there’s no way to tell where your calls are originating from…a very important feature that 9-1-1 emergency services tend to rely on when they receive your call! As they don’t know whether you’re calling from your house in Burbank, CA or a hotel room in Atlanta, GA, consequently many providers are routing these calls to non-emergency phone numbers which isn’t where you want them to go in the event of an emergency. It’s not the providers fault – their systems simply aren’t setup to be compatible with 9-1-1, but although the warnings are out there, some people have already made the switch without taking this into account and in one particular instance, the family believes that VoIP is to blame for the death of their daughter because they didn’t know that they couldn’t dial 9-1-1…
Although a sad and unfortunate case, I certainly don’t think that this bears reason to halt production on VoIP and it didn’t stop me from switching over, either. However just as in any other big decision that affects an entire household, the pros and cons need to be weighed before signing that final release to order the service and say goodbye to higher phone bills. Of course, the fractional cost was a huge factor in swapping over my own line – I’d been searching for a way to cut down the checks that I’d been sending my local phone company for quite some time now and after the switch, my bill has dropped from $50 to $15 / month – very nice! And although I don’t use them, the features that my VoIP provider includes for free in my package probably would’ve cost another $20 / month from my old phone company. As far as 9-1-1 is concerned, I personally don’t have children in my home and in addition to making my guests aware of this issue when they visit, I also have a list of local emergency numbers posted by the phone just in case.
“But how’s the quality?!” you ask? Well, simply put, the quality that I’ve experienced thus far with VoIP has been spectacular – completely contradictory to all of the negative press that you’ve been hearing from the traditional companies as they watch their base drift away! I tested out my system for about two weeks before signing the paperwork to port over my home telephone number and say goodbye to Ma Bell myself, and so far everything has been great – no static, no echoes, no worries…and no overhead bills that seem unnecessary, either! My local calling area is larger than every before and long distance is cheaper than the “special package” that I used to purchase monthly for an extra fee with the other guys – needless to say, I’m hooked!
So is VoIP for everybody? Probably not, but if you’ve got a geeky guy at home itching for a new project and you’d like to see your phone bills drop significantly, then it’s certainly worth the research to consider if it’s right for your own home! More importantly, however, I think both sides of the fence are hopefully going to start seeing the benefits of VoIP in dropping telephone rates across the board because as their customers continue to flock elsewhere, these big guys are going to have to start doing something different in order to stay afloat. They might not be budging yet – anyone who’s checked into prices lately can vouch that the Bells offering their own VoIP services still want to charge double what these smaller, new guys are asking, but I think it’s only a matter of time before they realize that it’s time to take one for the team if they’re going to continue to stay on top of the telephony industry! Between cell phones and VoIP, they’re certainly getting a run for their money…
So there you have it – my official thumbs up for VoIP…a simple web search for the term should give you plenty of more information to help decide if it’s right for you, as a number of factors (including your Internet connection speed and amount of actual phone use) apply here that I didn’t even touch upon, so do your homework and make the right decision for yourself! Next week I’ll brush on a related topic – Local Number Portability - and how it’s affected me so far, both with VoIP and my own personal cell phone. Until then, surf safely and never underestimate the little guy!
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