I've recently considered trying out new VoIP technology that I've been hearing so much about. There is so much thats cool about it. First and most obvious is price. The hardware necessary for this (assuming that you already have high-speed internet) is currently free after rebates! And the actual monthly service costs almost half what a land-line costs. And in this age of cell phones, I very rarely use my land-line. And there are so many benefits and flexibilities that you don't get with the same ease dealing with phone companies:

  • You can change over to VoIP and keep your old phone number
  • You can choose any area code you want to make it cheaper for family to contact you
  • You can make your number toll-free for others to call
  • Extras like 3-way, call forwarding/waiting, *69, caller id, etc are included
  • You can access voicemail from your computer also
  • You can integrate contacts with Outlook and turn your computer into a phone
  • You get service discounts for referring people
  • It's free to call others who also using the service
  • You can route multiple vritual numbers to one phone
  • etc, etc, etc

   However, the only problem I have is this creates a single-point of failure for communication in my house. I won't say the name of the company here, but if I decide to install this, my cable TV, ethernet, wireless, house phone, and fax services are literally coming from one source...one little hole in the wall. The convenience of this stuff seems cool now but it just doesn't seem like a good idea to put all my eggs in one basket.

   Once they have everyone roped in and then decide to raise the prices, we'll all start complaining. Or they could simply have technical issues one day and my contact with the outside world (except for my cell phone and actually talking to people face-to-face) is dependent on them so I'm screwed. Or someone could have too much to drink one night and trip over a cable and bring all my systems down. That would suck too. Hmmm....Maybe I should be more trustworthy.

I've done the math and changing from land-line to VoIP wil save me $300 per year. Maybe that is reason enough to switch over. We'll see.

Stanley Jones