With the advances in Voice over IP technologies over the past few years, it is no wonder that free VoIP is everywhere. Particularly to use with mobile devices and smart phones, free VoIP is a great way to save money and is easy to use for just about everyone.
Because of the expansion of both residential and mobile VoIP technology, it is obvious as to why this technology is becoming more and more popular as well as less expensive to use. In fact, many mobile VoIP providers are actually doing so for free. Taking advantage of free VoIP is a great way to save money on your cell phone bill every month if you tend to use lots of voice minutes. There are a few major companies that offer free VoIP like Google Voice and more. It is important to understand how VoIP works before choosing the best VoIP provider for you.
What is VoIP?
Voice over IP technology means to use communication protocols and transmission technology to delivery voice and data multimedia over Internet Protocol. VoIP technology works differently than traditional phone calling through the public switched telephone network (PSTN) in that it is transported over the Internet instead of going through the PSTN. The actual data and voice is delivered through IP packets that are transferred from the digitization of the analog voice signal. The signal is then encoded and then sent over IP to a packet-switched network. In order to receive the information, the reverse process is then followed in order to accept the phone call or data information.
Benefits to VoIP technology:
Many are switching to include VoIP technology into their daily communication system because it saves them money. Especially during tough economic times like we are currently experiencing, there are plenty of reasons to maximize your usage of free VoIP because it can easily save a regular mobile phone customer on their communication costs. This kind of technology can be offered for free because it saves so much bandwidth and is easier to use that it is not a product that typically should cost any money. However, there are other cheap VoIP providers out there that do charge a small monthly fee, or per call fee. Usually the free VoIP is found with mobile phone technology. Like Google Voice can work for fee if you sign up for an account and use it on your cell phone. However, residential VoIP still costs a small monthly fee. Many businesses have also been making the switch to VoIP services, which also does cost a monthly charge. For those who have access to the Internet, VoIP is a smart economical choice for both home, office or personal mobile use. Features like voicemail, call forwarding, automatic redial and caller ID tools that go along with all kinds of VoIP technology are a great way to cash in on the savings with free VoIP technology.
If you are one of those people with a cell phone that never uses up the number of voice minutes you need each month and find you don’t need VoIP to save money on your monthly cell phone bill, don’t rule out this technology just yet. One of the biggest conveniences to using free VoIP is that it cuts down significantly on the cost of international dialing. Many may have friends and loved ones overseas and outside of the United States. Through a traditional PSTN system these kind of calls can get incredibly expensive. However, with mobile VoIP you can call for free or for a much lower fee. In addition to free VoIP technology like Google Voice, you can also get in some face-to-face time with companies like Skype. This is a video chat service that can be done on the computer giving you the chance to video chat for free. Google Voice is also available directly over the computer. If you have a headset for your computer, using a system like Skype or Google Voice is a great way to talk over the computer using free VoIP. This is a great and helpful tool especially if you are an employee that works from home, although just about everyone can benefit from using this technology.