There is no doubt about it – VOIP is here to stay.  I suppose that you can assume that anyone who has had any experience with the Internet for the past few years would have at least a vague idea of what VOIP is all about.  Yet you would be surprised at the number of people who do not know all that much about this wonderful technology and its implications on one’s personal finances.

Take my friend, for example.  He has been living in Asia for the past 3 years.  Before he went over there, he had regular interaction with clients and friends.  He was in the United States, his clients and friends were in various Asian countries.  He had to call several people everyday for hours on end.  What did he use?  His regular phone operator, which cost him thousands of dollars in phone bills.

Today, he has changed tactics and is using VOIP to make his all his phone calls to the United States and other parts of the world.  Say, on an ordinary day, he would have to call a client in Australia.  They spend about 30 minutes on the phone.  Right after that, he wants to call his parents in the United States.  They talk for about an hour.  Later in the day, he has to call another client in the UK.  They talk for around 45 minutes.  This is a typical day in his life.  You can just imagine how much his phone bill would have been if he were using a regular phone!  With VOIP, however, he does not pay more than $20 a month, even less!

So how does VOIP manage to cut down telephone bills by this much?  The major thing is that VOIP avoids toll fees that are charged by conventional telephone companies that utilize the standard public switched telephone network.  On top of this, VOIP is not covered by Federal USF and FCC Line Charges.  This is due to the fact that the voice calls are made over the Internet.  As such, the cost of VOIP calls is cut down even more.

As you can see, VOIP is not merely a trend or a fad that will be gone tomorrow.  With the way it is saving people money, it will surely be here to stay.  If you have not tried out VOIP yet, then maybe it is about time that you did.

Don't miss a post! Subscribe to the RSS feed or by email today!