New businesses can now let their customers contact them for free or inexpensively with the use of Voice over IP telephony, without having to lease the ever more expensive toll free numbers offered by many telecoms companies around the world. With Voice over IP telephony, local numbers can be setup in scores of towns and cities across a country at relatively low costs. These can then connect to a central Voice over IP service provider, which will allow free or low rate calls to you from your customers.

Internet telephony or Voice over IP as it is more commonly known has been hailed as the next big thing in the telecommunications world for quite some time. In the past it has been plagued with poor sound and connection quality, as well as complex and frustrating installations.

With huge advances in Voice over IP technology in the last few years, you no longer have to sit at your computer in order to make a phone call over the Internet using Voice over IP. It is now possible to use an ordinary phone, connected to a Voice over IP adaptor (gateway). Some specialised Voice over IP phones (IP phones) have this technology built into their circuitry, effectively allowing you to plug and play.

Voice over IP splits your voice into Internet Protocol Data Packets. These packets are then routed over the Internet. This makes it a lot cheaper for Voice over IP service providers to carry your calls. Using this method Voice over IP service providers only have to pay a small termination fee at the point where they drop your call off. This in turn make Voice over IP extremely cost effective for those companies who cannot afford the high costs associated with those of toll free numbers. It would then become possible for example to rent phone numbers in major cities across a country at cheap rates, and people in these cities would then be able to talk to you for just the cost of a local call.

In the past few years Voice over IP has matured and is fast becoming the way to make cheap rate calls both nationally and internationally. In fact most major telecoms companies around the world, are now gearing up to charge us for the amount of data sent or received, as opposed to the length of call time. Many businesses are taking early advantage of the huge cost savings for them and their customers, through the implementation of Voice over IP telephony.

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Jason Morris is co-author, search engine optimization and marketing consultant of Business Phone Systems Direct. An established communications company, offering advice and implementation of high quality business phone systems.
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