What’s The Best VoIP Service Provider?

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These days businesses are turning to VoIP service as a way to deliver exceptional communications at a fraction of the cost. There’s a lot of players out there, each with their own specialties making it hard to decide who haw to best VoIP service in  2015- 2016. Ring Central is no doubt nearly always one of the top ranked company, but you still have some other major players out there like Vonage, Jive, and Ooma Office. So how you chose and what do you look for in this big circle of players? Mr. Muchmore wrote a good piece on PC that offers some good tips and they are worthy of sharing (below) and it help you in your purchase.

If VoIP is a new term to you it’s best explained this way, Voice over IP (VoIP) is a technology used for the delivery of voice communications over Internet. VoIP lets you combine your voice, data, and video into a single service.

According to Mr Muchmore, writer at PC Magazine VoIP is generally fairly simple to set up and affordable for most people. We agree and also recommend that you look at our reviews of the top 10 VoIP Service providers and compare VoIP prices to get the best plan.

How VoIP Works: If you're looking for the best service you need to know how it works, so with VoIP, your analog voice calls are instantly converted into tiny packets of data. The data packets travel like any other type of data, such as e-mail, over the public Internet and/or any private Internet Protocol (IP) network. Using a VoIP phone service, you can call landlines or cell phones.

Mr. Muchmore says  you can still get a landline number from your local telephone or cable operator—Verizon, AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, and the rest. But you can do better than that: You can use a lower-cost VoIP service that takes advantage of your broadband Internet connection for your phone service.

For most users, VoIP is usually very easy to set up. You get a box or special phone adapter unit from the service provider, plug it into power, your Internet router, and a standard telephone handset. An alternative that's becoming less common is to purchase a SIP phone, which includes electronics enabling it to sidestep the need for the adapter.

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According to Mr. Muchmore the price differences between VoIP and standard landline services are indeed significant. For example, in the NY area, a Verizon Freedom Value plan with unlimited local and long-distance calling is priced at $59.99 per month. AT&T beats that, with an AT&T U-verse Voice Unlimited package in Wisconsin priced at $35 a month, but there's a catch here—you can't get it without adding at minimum a $14.95 per month Internet plan.

So you're looking at at least $50 for landline service from the traditional Ma Bell duopoly. VoIP services reduce that monthly bill by huge portions. A Vonage line will run you $9.99 the first year and $26.95 thereafter. PhonePower, will get you unlimited VoIP service in the United States adn Canada for $14.95 per month with a two-year contract. This includes unlimited U.S. and Canada calling with Skype, plus an inbound telephone number for just $7.95 per month.

Not only do VoIP phone services cost far less than traditional phone line services, but they also add tools and features on top of what you get from the legacy providers. PhonePower offers an on-screen application that allows you to make and receive phone calls directly from your desktop computer. Vonage offers mobile apps for iOS and Android that function as extensions to your primary telephone. Both deliver Web access to your voicemail and phone call history, and permit you to receive inbound faxes to an office e-mail address.

Skype is actually better-known for its video calling than its standard telephone system capabilities, and that service also offers rich text messaging. A cool feature in most of the services is “phone hunt,” which rings multiple phones or apps until you pick up, or sends the call to voicemail. You'll also find caller blocking, three-way calling, and call waiting.

Business Phone VoIP
The business-focused entrants in this roundup, go farther in additional capabilities, serving as cloud-based PBXes. These permit your business to present a very professional appearance to customers and prospects, with features like call-routing, automated attendants, call recording, and conference call bridges. They usually sell several pricing options according to the amount of phone lines needed, ranging from around $20 per line for larger businesses to $35 per line for smaller companies; you also pay more for some added features like integration with cloud services.

Make the Internet Your Landline
You can get away with having a mobile phone as your only communication. But landline service holds its advantages, including never having to worry about how strong your cellular signal is or whether your battery has any power remaining. Landlines and VoIP also tend to offer clearer sound. If those considerations have undeniable appeal for you, look at summaries of the best VoIP services around, and dig into the review links for more comparisons and pricing.

See our Side By Side Reviews Top 10 Best VoIP Service Providers Here

Author: Hudson Piccini

Hudson Cynar, a Harvard University alumna and the owner of three prosperous enterprises, is a distinguished business consultant, author, and writer. Her expertise spans multiple business sectors, with a particular emphasis on storage containers, commercial copiers, payroll services, and medical billing software. Dedicatedly investing thousands of hours into product and service research, Hudson crafts insightful reviews to guide entrepreneurs in making informed decisions for their businesses.