VoIP Service Comparison and Reviews

A large percentage of the population of North America has already switched their traditional home telephone service over to a VoIP enabled service. Businesses are also moving their telecom service over to a VoIP service at a fast pace. If you or your business have not already made this change, then you should start evaluating this option as soon as possible, as there are a number of benefits that VoIP offers over traditional telecom services.

Not convinced? Let's try to give you some guidance by addressing some potential concerns:

1. My Telecom service seems fine, so why even consider changing it?
2. Seems like there are lots of VoIP companies, so where do I start?
3. How can I avoid making a costly mistake when selecting a service provider?

1 - Why should I consider VoIP Services for Home or Business?

The table below highlights some of the benefits that this service has over a traditional telephone service solution.

Feature	VoIP (Hosted)	Regular Phone
Easy Setup & Installation
Easy Maintenance
Unlimited Nationwide Calling Included
Cheap or Included International Calling
Low monthly costs per phone number
Lots of Calling Features included (e.g. caller-id)
Bypasses Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN)
Both portable and flexible
Business service can often integrate with office tools
Self management
Outstanding digital voice quality

 

Above all else, in almost every case, VoIP will save both a consumer and a business a significant amount of money.

2 - With so many VoIP Providers, where do I even start looking?

This is a great question as it can indeed be a daunting task to get started in the search for a provider that can best meet your needs, while still offering a great deal. As with any search for a product or service, there are a number of ways to approach this:

• Use a search engine to search for a provider and hope for the best. Remember that the providers that are either showing up in the Ads or are in the first few rankings in the search listings, are likely paying a lot of money to be there. They are probably looking to recoup their advertising costs by charging you slightly more than others.
• For home phone service shoppers, there is in fact the option to buy a phone service package when you are out shopping at places like Best Buy or other large retailers. Shelf space at these retailers is expensive so be aware that it is very unlikely that you will get the best deal by going this route.
• If shopping for business service, you can take a similar approach and get your phone service through a provider that is affiliated with Costco (as an example). Having a large and well known brand name touting the service definitely gives you peace of mind, but you still need to ask yourself if this is really the best and cheapest option for my business.
• If shopping for home voice service, you can take the easy route and sign-up for a triple play package from AT&T, Comcast, etc. This bundles your TV, Internet and phone service into one nice big fat bill every month. Take a closer look at the portion that you pay for the voice service though and you will see that it will likely be in the region of $40 per month. Most VoIP services are under $10 per month with some such as PhonePower and VBuzzer offering deals starting at under $5 per month.
• Recommended approach. The best way to get the best VoIP service at the best price is to comparison shop. This may sound like a bit more effort but it is worthwhile. If you are looking for home phone service then there are sites such as this one that allow easy comparison of services, and occasionally offer exclusive low pricing that is not available directly from the provider. If you are looking for business service then the recommendation is to start engaging directly with providers by requesting pricing quotes by completing the form at the top of this page.

3 - How can I avoid Buyer's Remorse when selecting a Provider?

Although there is no way to guarantee that you will be happy with any product or service that you purchase, there are simple ways to mitigate that risk and significantly improve the chances that you will be very happy with your decision to switch to VoIP. Here are a few suggestions:

• Read reviews for each of the providers and services that you are considering. Make sure the reviews that you are reading are from a reputable site that contains a wealth of information on VoIP. This should help ensure that there is a good quantity of user feedback to digest and that the feedback and comments are authentic. Take a look at the average review and then look for trends in comments that are relevant to what you are specifically interested in regarding the service.
• Be aware of any hidden fees before buying. There will likely be a small amount of tax related fees associated with your service. Just be sure you are aware of this as there are typically extra fees outside the advertised price.
• Be aware of when the fee structure changes in your contract. For example, Vonage offers a nice $9.99 introductory fee for the first 3 months but then the monthly jumps to a whopping $24.99 per month before taxes and other fees.
• Ensure you understand any necessary one-time costs before purchasing. For example if you are a business and discover that you need to upgrade your internet bandwidth to support voice, then an additional cost will be involved. Another example is if you are not aware of a need to purchase new phones and what the resulting cost will be.
• Businesses should look at the total cost of ownership and evaluate on-premise versus a hosted solution. For more information on this visit this page for info on small business voice solutions.
• Select a reputable company to service your VoIP. This is easier said than done and as we mentioned in the previous section we recommend that if you are business, you start by getting pricing quotes to compare options. If you need home service then evaluate comparison information.

Summary

We hope that the above information has answered any questions that you may have had and addressed any concerns. To get started:

Looking for Residential Services using VoIP

1. Evaluate the provider information on our residential voip page.
2. Read the customer reviews for the provider that you are interested in.
3. Go ahead and sign-up as there is really nothing to lose and lots of money to save.

Looking for Business Services using VoIP

1. Evaluate the provider information on our business voip page.
2. Create a short list of providers of interest and start reading user reviews.
3. Request comparison pricing quotes to get the lowest price available.

 

Top VoIP Services for Businesses

One of the best ways to avoid Buyer's Remorse when considering a new phone solution is to get competitive pricing quotes and have multiple providers compete for your business. Complete this simple form to receive customized quotes, and calculate how much you can save.