Choosing a Broadband Phone - Things to Consider

With the increase in DSL and Cable broadband Internet access, broadband phone service is becoming more and more popular in homes and businesses. The days of the chopped speech and echoed voices that we used to associate with voice over Internet (VoIP) are a thing of the past. Now you can use your regular phone through your broadband phone line to make cheap long distance calls locally or around the world for a fraction of what a regular phone line and long distance calls would cost. And the quality has improved to the point where people won't even know you're calling them over the Internet unless you tell them.

Shop for a Broadband Phone Service

Things to consider when comparing broadband phone services:

• You can use any of these broadband phone services with your existing phone. Broadband phone providers supply an adapter to convert the signal from analog to digital.
• VoIP providers are now required to provide E911 service, however you should always have an alternative means of accessing traditional emergency services just in case your Internet connection or VoIP service goes down.
• Your broadband phone will not operate in the event of a power outage or an outage of your broadband cable or DSL service.
• You can take your broadband phone adapter device on trips and continue to use it to make phone calls whenever you are able to connect to a broadband connection.
• If your adapter device is stolen, the thief can use it to make expensive international calls that you would be responsible for. In the event of theft, notify your provider immediately to terminate service to the device.
• Service for your broadband phone is dependent on the adapter device provided by your service provider. This means any telephones you want to operate on the service must be hardwired to that device, so it is not very convenient for users who want multiple extensions around their home or office. To solve this problem, consider a multi-handset Cordless Phone that is ideal for broadband phone service.
• You can run multiple lines through your cable or DSL connection, but each line will need its own account and you'll need an adapter device for each line. To run multiple devices, you'll need a router capable of connecting the desired number of devices and enough available bandwidth to support the multiple lines. Each phone line requires 23 kilobits/second of bandwidth, so for example if you want to operate 12 phone lines, you'll need 276 kb/s of total data throughput, upstream and downstream. (This assumes all 12 lines are in operation at one time.) If you're also running a computer on your connection, you'll need more bandwidth. Our personal experience has shown that phone quality suffers when high bandwidth operations are taking place via our computer. ie. uploading or downloading files.

Click here for recommended list of Broadband Phone Services