VOIP is an acronym for
Voice
Over
Internet
Protocol, or in more common terms phone service over the Internet.
If you have a reasonable quality Internet connection you can get phone service delivered through your Internet connection instead of from your local phone company.
Some people use VOIP in addition to their traditional phone service, since
VOIP service providers usually offer lower rates than traditional phone companies, but sometimes doesn't offer 911 service, phone directory listings, 411 service, or other common phone services. While many VoIP providers offer these services, consistent industry-wide means of offering these are still developing.
Why use Voip?
There are two major reasons to use
VOIP
-Lower Cost
-Increased functionality
In the most extreme case, users see VOIP phone calls (even international) as
FREE. While there is a cost for their Internet service, using VOIP over this service may not involve any extra charges, so the users view the calls as free. There are a number of services that have sprung up to facilitate this type of "free" VOIP call. Examples are: Free World Dialup and Skype .
VOIP makes easy some things that are difficult to impossible with traditional phone networks.
-Incoming phone calls are automatically routed to your VOIP phone where ever you plug it into the network. Take your VOIP phone with you on a trip, and anywhere you connect it to the Internet, you can receive your incoming calls. -Call center agents using VOIP phones can easily work from anywhere with a good Internet connection.
Instead of spending a lot on international calls, using voip makes business expenditures small.