Looking around on the World Wide Web, I found the article below about saving on International calling. Feel free to read it and shop around for cheap international calling plans. When you purchase a plan through Brochin.net, 100% of our commissions go to the Brothers in Arms Foundation.

by: Bob Graham

There are a variety of low cost international long distance calling products on the market today but each has been designed to fit the needs of a specific group of consumers. Marketers and product developers have tried to broaden the appeal of their products but all have certain limitations. The purpose of this article is to review categories of international calling products on the market today and provide a brief overview of their strengths and limitations so consumers can make better choices.

One product does not fit the needs of all. People who are PC savvy and have high speed INTERNET connections may choose to use PC to PC or PC to Phone service or VoIP technology while others may want the convenience and flexibility of a phone card. Most people only make occasional international calls while others make multiple international phone calls each day. Therefore, some people are willing to sacrifice quality and convenience in order to save money while others are willing to pay a bit more for higher quality, convenience and flexibility. Consumers need to understand the limitations of each product type so they can make informed choices.

• Traditional Long Distance – Forget using traditional long distance from your home phone, cell phone or office phone unless you only make one or two short international calls each year and you don’t care about wasting money. There are products on the market today which offer the same quality at a fraction of the cost.

• VoIP Phone Service – This may be a good option for saving money on home phone service but it is not the best option for saving money on international calls. There is a monthly charge for VoIP service and in most cases international long distance calls cost extra. The cost for making international long distance calls with VoIP is typically cheaper than the rates charged by traditional long distance providers but there cheaper options that are more convenient. A high speed internet connection is required for VoIP and most service providers require a long term contract. VoIP service providers typically charge extra fees for set-up, activation, early termination and some even charge for equipment.

• PC-to-PC or PC-to-Phone Service – This service is used to make calls over the internet from a personal computer. A PC-to-PC service like Skype is required along with equipment like a head-set and micro phone. PC-to-PC calls are typically free so this is a very cheap option but it is not very convenient since both parties need access to a PC and an internet connection. Calls can be made from PC-to-Phone but they are not free. This is more convenient but the caller still needs access to a PC and an internet connection. There are other methods for making international calls that cost about the same as PC-to-Phone but are more convenient and typically offer better quality.

• Phone Cards – Prepaid phone cards have ultimate convenience since they can be used to make cheap international calls from almost any phone (cell, home, business, pay phone or even VoIP). The cost for making international calls vary from being dirt cheap to expensive depending on the card used and the location or type of phone called. Calls to cell phones are generally more expensive than calls to land lines. Shopping and comparing phone cards can be complex because fee structures vary along with quality and usability. Most phone cards provide good rates to a few locations but poor rates to others. Shop for phone cards that offer good rates to the locations you call the most. Also, check for access number availability in the locations where you plan to use the phone card. Purchase phone cards from a reputable phone card supplier that fully discloses all fees and charges in an easy to understand format.

• Prepaid Long Distance – These are sometimes call dial-around plans. Prepaid long distance plans like Tel3Advantage are popular with frequent international callers since they offer a variety of useful features, low rates, high call quality and the convenience of a phone card. Tel3 Advantage also does not charge hidden fees or taxes so users actually pay the advertised rate for each call. Features include on-line account management, on-line call history with a complete record of each call, speed dial and PIN free dialing. Tel3 allows users to register up to 10 telephone numbers in each account. Calls made from these phone numbers can be made without dialing an account number or PIN code. Tel3Advantage has a wide network of local access numbers but can only be used to make calls from the USA and Canada.

• International Call Back Phone Service – This is a good method for making low cost international calls from almost any country. Many countries outside of North America, Europe and the developed countries in Asia have very high tariffs on international long distance calls. International callback long distance uses a clever method to avoid these tariffs by placing calls through long distance providers located in low cost third countries. There are at least three common methods used to trigger or place calls so potential users should conduct further research to determine the best method for their location and situation.

As summarized above, there are a variety of technologies available on the market today for making low cost international phone calls. Multiple companies’ market products using these technologies and some of these products are high quality and others are not. Consumers should shop and be smart about purchases. It is usually best to try a product by making a small purchase before making a large purchase or enter a long term contract. Most reputable VoIP providers will offer a 30 day (or longer) money back guarantee and most phone card providers will offer cards in small denominations so consumers can try the product before making a large purchase or commitment. It is best to stay away from those who don’t.

About The Author

Bob Graham is the editor of http://SmartGlobalCall.com which is a website specializing in international calling products and services. He is also the webmaster for several other phone related websites including http://Tel3-prepaid.com and http://SmartGlobalCall.net

Article Source: http://www.articlecity.com/articles/business_and_finance/article_9990.shtml

The last post we covered using VoIP as primary line. This post will be about using VoIP as a second line in your home or small business.

So why should you have VoIP as a second phone line if you akready have a traditional line in your home or business? VoIP probviders typically can save you a tone on long distance charges. If you have family located across the globe, then this is a great option and can save you a tone of money. Some VoIP providers even provide free calls to some countries. Typically all calls within the U.S. and Canada are free.

As we stated in the previous posts, VoIP can provide features that traditional phone service cannot. Features like call forwarding, caller id and e-mail notification of voice mail sets VoIP apart from traditional lines and makes it a great option for a second line in your hime or business. These features are free and included with th monthly service charge, while traditional phone companies charge extra for those features, that’s if they even offer the features.

Well, as stated in previous posts, VoIP is much cheaper than traditional phone service. However, some issues to consider if VoIP will be your only home phone line:

-VoIP uses high speed Internet, if your Internet connection goes down, so does your phone service.

-VoIP adpaters and Internet modems or adpaters use electrical power. If the power goes out, so does your phone service.

Now there are some work arounds for these issues mentioned above. The first being the need to have reliable high speed Internet service. If you need a reliable provider you can start by shopping for high speed Internet HERE. If you currently have high speed Internet, but the connectivity is shaky, then so will your VoIP and you may need to look for another high speed Internet provider that will provide the reliability VoIP will need.

The second issue to address is the loss of power. Now if you have a backup generator for your home or residence, this won’t even be a problem. However, most people do not have a backup generator for their residence. What you may want to look into buying is an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). This is basically rechareable battery that you keep your VoIP adapter and high speed Internet modem plugged into. When power is lost, those items will run off the charged battery in the UPS for a specified time that varies based on the type of UPS you purchase. You can find UPS’s here.

Another thing to consider is having a cellphone. If you own a cellphone, then losing your VoIP service for a short period of time due to loss of Internet or power may not be that big of a deal.

These are not the only factors and a couple are very general and can be drilled down on more, but this is a basic breakdown of the 4 factors to consider when shopping for VoIP .

Businesses will require one to look at more factors, but for smaller businesses this should get you started.

1)Quality of Service (QOS):

Please don’t confuse this with QOS in regards to network engineering. For this QOS you should look into the reputation of the vendor to see if they have a reputation for providing QOS. Not only in the delivery of communications, but in their customer service and support as well. Today any Residential VoIP company worth a hoot will have quality service.

Another item to consider for VoIP service is your Internet connection. First off, it needs to be a high speed connection. Second is the quality of your Internet service. If your Internet service is spotty or terrible, then your VoIP service will be as well.

2) Price:

VoIP service is typically cheaper than traditional phone lines. Below are a few things to be aware of when looking at price of service:

Extra Fees and Taxes – A big advantage of VoIP is that VoIP and the Internet is not overly regulated like traditional phone services. This means less taxes and less “hidden fees” on your bill.

Early Termination Fee – Some VoIP providers have contracts that range from 1 month to 3 years. Depending on the contract you can incur a substantial fee if you cancel service early. So as a buyer you need to be aware of this termination fee and the specific of the agreement.

As we stated earlier, you will need a high speed Internet connection, so if you do not have that, you should consider this cost when doing some VoIP shopping. If you require high speed Internet, you can start looking at our High Speed Internet Comparison page.

VoIP requires a separate modem on top of your high speed Internet modem. VoIP modems can cost anywhere from $10 – $100 dollars, but typically most providers will provide this for free with the initial setup.

3) Features:

VoIP service has the capability to provide a residential customer or small business the look and feel of a larger business. A basic VoIP features package will contain caller id, three way calling, call forwarding and cheap international rates. Some additional features that vary from provider to provider is the ability forward voice mail to an e-mail address and will allow portability of your phone for travel.

Now, one last thing worth mentioning is that most VoIP modems only allow 1-2 phones to be connected to it. If you require more than one phone in your house, then you should look into a cordless solution. You can purchase cordless phone sets that have one base station and up to 4 phones that will work with that base station and each phone comes with its own charger stand.

VoIP services can be broken down into 2 types, which are business and residential.

Before companies like Vonage made it into our home, businesses were already using VoIP for their phone service. The reason for this was that VoIP can very complex to manage, but the long term cost savings to the business was substantial due to the money they saved from dropping traditional phone service (POTS).

Advances in the user friendly technology has allowed the technology to be brought into your home if high speed Internet is available. The reason residential Voip did not catch on quick was that for residential customers, traditional phone service was not all that expensive compared to what VoIP was at the time. Today though, the cost of having VoIP is much cheaper than traditional phone service and you can get many more services as well. VoIP for small business can be very affordable now as well and with a hosted service, there is no requirement to maintain a techie on staff.

More on residential voip for your home phone needs. I cover business Voip HERE if you would like to read up more on that. If you wish to do some comparison between your current service and VoIP services available, then CLICK HERE.

The purpose of this next series is to share with you the basics of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol), also known as digital phone service. You should find this information helpful to you in making a decision about getting a digital phone line and if it is the right decision for you.

You probably would like to get the best deal that you can, so at the here is a link to do some side by side comparison of providers, so feel free to do some no pressure VoIP shopping.

This post, and the series to follow, will assist you in understanding the basics of VoIP with little to no techno-geek talk, just simple plain English information and advice.

“Is Voip right for me?”
“Is VoIP better for me?”
“Will VoIP save me money, is it cheaper?”
“Is VoIP faster?”
“Is there less hassle with VoIP?’

Those are some of the questions we wish to address in this series about VoIP. So be looking for the next update very soon in regards to VoIP.

Also, if you haven’t already you might want to take a second and sign up for our newsletter in the top right of the sidebar of this website.

Just wanted to prove my point from yesterday about the basics of deciding between VoIP and plain old telephone. I found this article and thought I would share it. Sound famaliar? Ok, so how would you like to do some side by siode comparison of phone services without some salesman in your ear? Just use our cost comparison tools in the tabs above. As a reminder, if you purchase a service thorugh us, we donate 100% of our comissions until Feb 24th, to the Brothers in Arms Foundation.

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Landline Phone Service VS Digital
By Daymon Hoag

While both services allow you to make local and long distance phone calls using just your home telephone, there are some differences you’ll want to consider before making your final decision on which type to go with for your home phone line. Both have pros and cons, so it will ultimately be up to you which will work out best for you and your family’s needs.

Landline phone service

This is just your typical run of the mill telephone service. The same kind your grandparents used, and probably still use. Most elderly people are comfortable with landline, because they’ve always used it, and they like to stick with what they know works. Landlines are generally thought of as the regular old phone service where you just plug the phone cord into the wall jack, but these days you can even do that with some digital phone services.

Digital Phone Service

This is a marketing tactic used by cable operators to get around the idea of using Internet telephone, or VoIP. Digital, after all sounds much safer, and the not so tech savvy are more inclined to use it. Digital phone is in fact just VoIP (voice over IP). It uses your Internet connection to send and receive phone calls, but you don’t need a computer, or even any software. Just a regular home phone will do. This is a point cable providers have had a hard time getting across.

Benefits of Landline Phone

In two words; Old reliable. One time tested benefit that make consumers decide to keep their landline is its reliability. If your electricity goes out, your landline will still be able to make and receive phone calls. Rememer the blackout of 2003? Cell phones didn’t work, and neither did digital phone. The only way you could make a call was through a landline. Another benefit is 911 service. Even if you don’t have phone service you can still call 911 in some states. This is known as a soft dial tone.

Benefits of Digital Phone

The reason more and more people are signing up for digital phone service is more often than not, price. It’s cheap. Dirt cheap, in fact. One way to spot a digital phone provider is their use of the word voice when describing the product. If it says voice, it’s digital. With voice plans you’ll often get unlimited local and long distance calling at a flat rate, and for a fraction of the cost you might get from a landline provider. You’ll also get triple the calling features like call waiting, call forwarding, caller ID, and voice mail for no extra cost.

Choosing a Plan

It mainly comes down to cost versus reliability. If you need cheap phone service, and aren’t too worried about your power going out you may be a candidate for a digital line. On the other hand, if you need to rely on services such as 911 in an emergency, and don’t want to worry about whether or not your phone is going to work when you need to make that call, a landline may be worth a little extra cost to have that security. There are ways to save on landline though. Bundling for example, but that’s another article.

Daymon Hoag is the founder of Phone TV Internet LLC, where you can shop online for Landline Phone Service.

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Daymon_Hoag

http://EzineArticles.com/?Landline-Phone-Service-VS-Digital&id=1872373

Before we get started, I would like you to consider saving money on your phone bill and in turn help support the Brothers in Arms Foundation by using our cost comparison search engines to shop and purchase your phone service. View the various tools we have through the tabs above. Do some shopping, make a purchase and 100% of our commission goes to Brothers in Arms Foundation until 24 February. After 24 Feb, we will still give 50% to them.

People often ask me, “Which is better, VoIP or regular phone?”.

By regular phone, we are talking about traditional POTS (Plain Old Telephone System). The answer to the question is “It depends”. It depends on what you are looking for in your service.

- Do you want to save money?
- Is saving money more important than reliability of your service?
- Can you do without your service for a short period of time, if you save money?
- What features would you like with your phone service?

These are some of the basic questions, and there are more that should be asked, but we will stick with only these for now.

So let’s tackle the first question; “Do you want to save money?”. The answer to this questions is almost always “Yes”. If cost savings is the number 1 issue, then VoIP typically beat POTS every time.

The balance between saving and reliability is a little more complicated, but not much. The only thing that makes VoIP less reliable than POTS is the fact that high speed Internet modems and VoIP adapters use house power. When power is lost, so is phone service, unless you have backup power using UPS for the adapter and modems or generators that continue to supply house power. However, the same disadvantage is found in POTS if you are using cordless phones in your house because those also use electrical power.

To sacrifice or not sacrifice, that is the question. Most people can deal with a short term outage of phone service that comes with VoIP, like a short power outage or loss of Internet connectivity for a short period of time. Again, if using cordless phones with POTS, you will suffer the same problem when it comes to power loss.

Typically, VoIP services provide many more extra features than POTS like multiple voice mail boxes, e-mail forwarding of voice mails, fax services that can forward the fax to your e-mail, call forwarding, and best of all …portability!

VoIP or traditional circuit based systems? VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is considered to be the best telephony system today in comparison with the switched circuit based analog systems. VoIP is an IP telephony that manages the transmission and reception of voice information over the Internet. It uses broadband Internet connection for routing the calls. The voice information is managed in the digital form in separate packets using IP (Internet Protocol) rather than using the previously used circuit based transmission. VoIP has become more popular over the last few years because of the quality and reliability of the transmission of voice data, along with the cost advantages over traditional telephone networks.

The special features provided by the VoIP service providers are likely to be voicemail, call waiting, caller ID as well as some advanced features like call tracking, video conferencing and online system management.

Benefits of VoIP for Home based business

• Cost Effective

Cost savings is one of the main reasons for people to use VoIP rather than traditional circuit based system. In this system, you can place a VoIP call using the broadband Internet connection. The call cost remains the same even if you call across the street or across the country. Thus, the users can benefit a lot on long distance charges. The maintenance charges for using VoIP system are very less and are charged as a monthly rate. 

• Small business to look bigger

If you wish to make your home business look and feel like a bigger one, then a virtual PBX (Private Branch Exchange) with a dial-by-name directory can help. These systems may cost thousands to install but, many VoIP companies provide a hosted virtual PBX and you pay based on the time of plan, the cost can sometimes be as low as $2 USD a month. You can provide a separate line to each member of your team, view and print usage reports that show frequency and number of calls from and to each member of your team. 

• Freedom of Movement

Using VoIP service, you can place a call from anywhere you go where there is an Internet connection. The same number can be used even if you move to another city. 

What is the operation of VoIP for Home Office?

When it comes to business VoIP services, whether it is for home based business or a large business, there are options available according to the requirement of every company. The type of VoIP service plan to choose depends on the number of employees using this system. The business VoIP providers provide the Analog telephone Adapter (ATA) which converts the analog signals from a telephone into the digital bit stream for the transmission over the Internet. The ATA can handle up to 2 telephone lines. A fax machine can also be attached with one of the ports as it requires its own private number and phone line. 

With home office VoIP solution note that the extra phone lines and PCs can be attached by connecting them to the LAN side of the router.

For home office environment on small scale, this plan is well suitable and additional phone lines can be attached to it which costs the same monthly rate.

Obviously, people want the best quality service with a cost effective advantage over it’s competition. If we talk in terms of telephone calling long distance or local, then VoIP is comparatively more preferable than the traditionally used circuit based telephony system. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) takes analog voice signals, converts the analog to digital, then compresses the signal in preparation for transmission using Internet Protocol. This compressed voice data is in the digital form and is sent in discrete packets using IP (Internet Protocol). VoIP Residential phone service allows the residential customers to use their Internet connection to make voice phone calls. This phone service is rapidly gaining in popularity and market share, as it provides a variety of features for users.

Features like caller ID, hold, call transfer, call waiting and repeat dialing usually cost extra with landline phone service whereas, they are in-built in VoIP. For add-on features like three-way dialing, call forwarding, call filtering or sending calls directly to the voice mail, the service providers may charge some extra fees, but typically this is also included with most packages. The VoIP users can also check their voice mails over the web or can attach messages to an email sent to their PDA or PC. Some other nice features like automated recording of phone calls, video conferencing, messaging option are also available for the VoIP users.

Another feature of VoIP provides soft phones in which a software application loads the VoIP services on the desktop or laptop. Some even create an interface like a telephone with which you can make VoIP calls anywhere in the world through a standard broadband Internet connection.

Advantages of Residential VoIP Phone Service

• One of the major advantages of VoIP is that the telephone calls made through Internet do not charge any extra other than the Internet access charges which is in the same way that an individual does not have to pay for sending and receiving emails through Internet. Long distance calls are generally cheaper using VoIP compared to standard phone line. Thus, Residential VoIP phone plans helps in reducing the monthly bills.

• There are now VoIP cordless and corded phones available, so after getting Internet access, you can place a VoIP call from anywhere you go.

• VoIP market is increasing day by day and so, a number of hardware products are released supporting the VoIP service.

The following is required for using a Residential VoIP:

Broadband Internet Connection- VoIP calls are routed to their destination through the broadband Internet connection. Most of the Residential VoIP plans have a minimum speed so; it is necessary to make the connection faster for accurate and fast transmission of voice data.

Adapter (VoIP or Analog Telephone Adapter)- Our regular phones can be used with a home VoIP service plan, but it is advisable by the service providers to use adapter as it ensures the call quality. This adapter costs about $50 each and sometimes even less if you opt for a second-hand adapter

Telephone- Telephone is used in this service but, you can also use a headset and microphone connected to a computer.