The acronym VOIP actually stands for Voice Over Internet Protocol and it is gaining popularity on a daily basis. In fact, more than a year ago, there were more new VOIP phone activations than there were traditional new phone activations. That is a powerful statement about how well VOIP is working, both for personal use and business use, and how it is proving to be able to save huge amounts of money for people that need to use telephone conversations as a part of their daily routine or business.

However, VOIP service is not designed to be "one size fits all". One of the things you need, which the VOIP service provider does NOT include with the service, is a reliable high speed Internet connection. If your high speed Internet connection is not reliable or is not as fast as required, then VOIP service is not for you. If the only high speed Internet connection you have available to you is satellite, then VOIP is not for you.

One of the things that is very confusing for customers is knowing what kind of telephone they need. The answer is that is does not matter. If you have a telephone handset that works fine as a traditional phone, you can use that. What the VOIP carrier will provide with your VOIP service is a "black box", where you plug your telephone handset into one end of it, and plug the other end of it into a jack on your high speed Internet connection router. If you do not have an extra jack on your router, you can get a small four-port router at some place like Best Buy or Circuit City for about $30, and then you can plug your computers and your VOIP phone "black box" into that.

VOIP service providers offer the same features that are available on a regular phone line, but the beauty is that most of them offer these features as a standard part of the package, instead of charging extra for them like your phone company. For example, features like voice mail, call waiting, caller ID and more are usually standard features with VOIP service.

Can you use a wireless phone with VOIP service? Absolutely. Again, just plug the cord from the wireless phone base unit (the cord you would normally plug into the wall jack for the phone) into the black box provided by the VOIP service. Your wireless phone will work as well as it did with traditional phone service.

What about the economics of VOIP service? This is the biggest reason that VOIP is attracting more and more customers every day because it is a no brainer. Your phone company will give you a phone line with dial tone and no additional features for about $25 per month. That might include unlimited local calling but no long distance calling. Now contrast that with VOIP, where for about the same price or less, you get the feature set listed above, as well as unlimited local calling, as well as unlimited long distance calling throughout the continental US. Some VOIP providers also include unlimited long distance calling beyond that, like including Canada and even Puerto Rico.

Be sure to do your homework before choosing to go with VOIP service, and then compare offerings from the VOIP providers to find the one that is right for you.