By: Laura Backes
I’ve been seeing quite a bit of advertising for different internet phone services. They show happy people throwing away their phone bills and acting like it’s the best thing since sliced bread. I’m retaining a certain measure of skepticism, but maybe it’s just because I’m afraid of things I don’t understand.
- What is it? – Since this is fairly new technology, my first question is what is this and how does it work? Most people grew up with land line telephones and now have mobile phones and have a basic understanding of how they work. Internet phones are a foreign concept that I need explained.
- Does it work anywhere? – Living in a rural area, my next concern is if this system will work everywhere or only in largely populated areas. For those of us who only have one option for internet to begin with, will our local service support this phone system? What about the people I’m trying to call?
- Are there hidden fees? – Some of these internet phone services are supposed to be free, but I’m always skeptical about that. There’s no such thing as a free lunch, so what’s the catch?
- What are the equipment costs? – One thing I’m sure of is that you’ll have to purchase some kind of equipment to do this and I need to know how much it will cost. Can you use the phones you already own or not?
- Will this interfere with other internet activities? – Can you talk on the phone and still surf the web or check your email at the same time? If you can, does this slow everything else down?
- How is the sound quality? – How do internet phones sound compared to land line or cell phones? I need to know if the quality will be better, worse or the same.
- How quickly will it be obsolete? – Technology is changing so fast right now, that I always worry about how quickly the latest equipment becomes obsolete. By the time I get my internet phone system set up and start to get used to it, will they come up with something better and cheaper?
- What about customer service? – There seem to be so many different companies involved in making this work. Who do you call when it’s not working right and do they just pass the buck and blame someone else or will they get it fixed?
- Are international calls the same price? – I know that the internet is worldwide, but I’m so used to the idea of international calls being very expensive. Does the internet phone work the same all over the planet for the same price?
- Why doesn’t everybody have it? – If this is the best thing ever, why doesn’t everybody use the internet for their phones? Are there problems I don’t know about or are they all just as skeptical as me?
I can clearly see that I have more questions than answers. I’ll have to get on the internet and do some research. Then I probably should find someone who already uses internet calling to find out how they like it. Maybe getting my questions answered will eliminate the fear that’s holding me back and I’ll find out I can actually save some money on my phone bills.
This is a great guest post from a friend of DSLService-Providers.com, Jan Schultz who normally writes for the team over at Change of Address (.org). She brings up some good points and hopefully by working through this on our site Jan will get the answers she is looking for… In any event she definitely has earned herself an email and call from the Internet Service Guy!
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