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| | Many people, especially those who already have high speed Internet access at home, and who make a lot of domestic or international long distance calls, are now switching to Voice Over Internet Protocol (IP) phone service, which carries long distance calls over your Internet connection.
The quality of VOIP is usually pretty good, and the new VOIP headsets are familiar and comparable to traditional phones. Setting up a VOIP phone may take a little put of computer know-how. | | |
| Typical costs: | - Typical VoIP plans cost $20 a month for unlimited local calls, and $25-$40 a month for unlimited nation wide calls. There are per-minute calls for international calls, but often these are much less expensive than through landline carriers. With VoIP carriers like Vonage, you can often carry over your existing land line number if you cancel the land line service. If you already had two lines, a popular change is to switch one of them to Vonage and make all your long distance calls from that phone.
- If you just want to talk to someone long distance over the Internet, and don't actually need either person to have a phone number, you can hold free voice conversations over the Internet using software like Skype. In some countries, using Internet voice chat is more attractive than phone calls because it can avoid telecommunications charges in those countries (which can be expensive). Internet chat would require both people to be connected to computers with high-speed Internet connections at the same time.
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| What should be included: | - An unlimited calling plan normally includes voicemail, caller id, call waiting, call forwarding, three way calling, and other extra phone features.
- If you're replacing a landline, you should be able to transfer that phone number. You can also choose your area code, so if most of your customers or family is in a different area, you can get a number that's local to them.
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| Additional costs: | - You need to already have hi-speed Internet access.
- Typically, there are activation and startup fees of around $40, although these fees are often waived.
- Like with any phone service, there are monthly taxes and fees, totaling a few dollars.
- You'll need to purchase the VOIP phone itself. Skype enabled USB phones can cost $12-$30. When you sign up for VOIP phone service, you may get a phone adapter for free, or $50 off a cordless broadband phone, bringing the cost to $60-$120. See Vonage Products for some ideas.
- You can add a second "virtual" phone number for a relatively small fee, usually around $8/month.
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| Shopping for voice over internet phone service: | |
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Article updated November 2006 |
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