VoIP Phone Service vs. Land Line Phone Service
VoIP phone service, also known as voice over ip phone service, works by hooking your telephone to the internet. Your telephone calls are then sent over the internet as small bits of information, called packets, instead of them being sent over a regular telephone wire. This type of phone service has the following pros and cons:
VoIP Phone Service Pros:
• The only tax currently collected on internet phone service is the Federal 3% tax.
• Unlimited calling plans are under $25 per month.
• You can take your VoIP phone with you when you travel around the world, and call back to the US and Canada for free.
• A VoIP phone will work in any hotspot around the world.
• Voice-mail, Caller ID and other calling features are usually included with each plan.
VoIP Phone Service Cons:
• Digital phone service goes down when your internet goes down.
• 911 with internet phone service only works if you keep your E911 info updated with your internet phone service carrier.
Regular phone service is where a dedicated line is installed in, or on your house by a telephone company. While cable carriers do install phone service into homes and offices, they provide what they call “Digital Phone Service”. Digital phone service is a fancy name for internet phone service. Regular phone service has the following pros and cons:
Land-line Phone Service Pros:
• Regular phone service is technically more stable than internet phone service.
• Your landline phone number gets put in the phone book, while your internet phone service phone number doesn’t.
• Old fashioned phone signals, overall, sound better than internet phone service.
• 911 works automatically without putting in your address.
• You don’t have to have high speed internet service to have landline phone service.
Land-line Phone Service Cons:
• Regular phone service is more expensive than internet phone service.
• Long distance plans cost more with a landline account.
• Requires other choices for international travel. Calling cards, cell phones, pay phones.
While trying to play fair with the pros and cons of regular phone service and digital phone service, it is getting so that the only reason to still have a old fashioned phone plan is because you either can’t get fast enough internet service, or you really need to make sure your phone calls sounds good. But, with most people now using either landline phone service, or cell phones, trying to get the last 2% of call clarity isn’t worth throwing away $500 to $1,000 per year.
If you are interested in comparing internet phone service and landline phone service side by side, visit calling-plans.com and use their landline phone service rate calculator.