Surprisingly many people haven’t heard of VoIP technology. It basically allows you to call and talk to anyone, anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection. With VoIP you avoid all problems with regular cell phone or landline service, including high international calling fees and limited minutes.
In 2021, it is estimated that around 26% of UK homes have given up on their landlines completely. That has taken away a massive amount of customers from phone companies, who have been scrambling to stop losing money. One of the methods employed is to raise prices to make up the difference, which is bad news for their remaining users. For those that are ready to make that leap now, a quick online search could save you a lot of money.
Why Have a Home Phone?
For various reasons, having a phone at home aside from a smartphone is appealing to many people. It represents another line of communication in case you can’t get cell service. This was especially true during an era where cell phone service wasn’t perfect. As technology marched on though, more and more people are not willing to pay higher prices just to have a secondary phone at home. As a result, the landline market appears to be unsustainable.
The thing is, you don’t have to stay with those companies for the luxury of a home line. If you have the internet, there is a much better solution right around the corner.
Going Online
With the internet spreading further and further every year, the web has become an easy way to reach someone on the other side of the world. Research has shown that about 10% of international phone calls are made online with Voice over Internet Protocol. This is otherwise known as VoIP, and it may be the future of the landline. In fact, it’s already deeply rooted in the business sector of the United Kingdom. Companies are now buying more internet-based phone lines when compared to traditional services.
A big indicator of this is the airline industry. Many large airports all over the world have swapped to VoIP in order to reduce communication costs. Airlines also rely on the tech heavily, such as taking reservations for tickets over VoIP. However, does this necessarily mean that you should swap over to it yourself?
A Test Drive
Of course, the easiest way to analyze a service is to try that service for yourself. To that end, we decided to give it a whirl to describe our experience in a non-biased fashion.
From the very start, it was easy to see how convenient VoIP can be. As long as you have the internet set up already, all it takes is to sign up with a service like Skype or Vonage. Once that is done, you can immediately start placing calls to whomever you want. As a bonus, a lot of these services don’t charge you to call inside of the United Kingdom.
Call quality was also pretty fantastic, no matter who we called. So long as both parties have a strong internet connection, everything was crystal-clear. Given the services we tested were all free or free trials, that’s pretty outstanding value.
Our Conclusion
If you have access to the internet, we do not believe that there is a need to have a landline at all. This applies to both residential and business situations, as the value is so big. When you consider how much a landline can cost nowadays even when part of a larger package, you could be savings hundreds annually by swapping to a VoIP.
The easy argument in the past was that the internet wasn’t fast enough to maintain a good quality call. Speeds are getting quicker and more reliable now though, so it’s somewhat of a moot point. Besides, if you are paying for both a landline and internet service already, it’s likely cheaper to upgrade your internet than to continue paying for the landline.
Where to Start Looking
As a creation of the internet, the easiest way to get started with VoIP is, well, the internet. Just a quick online search will show you many services that you can try. It’ll be up to you to figure out which is perfect for your own use case. Be sure to do your research and compare prices, and you’ll be able to have that second phone line at a fraction of the normal cost.
