VoIP has brought down the rates for long distance and local calling so that many more people are trading in their PSTN telephones for spanking new digital VoIP phones. Since this is a new market there are many companies engaged in furious competition. This brings more services and lower costs to a greater number of people every year.

Not only are long distance charges much lower for VoIP as compared to PSTN but the local charges can also amount to quite a saving. In fact, with certain providers, if you make local calls within their subscriber network, there is no charge at all. This option is exclusive to VoIP and cannot be offered by PSTN providers due to technological limitations.

Hardware VoIP involves the installation of special devices that are either digital or use a digital adaptor to convert your analog phone into a digital device. Software VoIP is conducted purely using a computer after installing a software that functions as a phone, often referred to as Softphone or SIP Phone). Once the hardware or software is in place, there is not much difference between the cost of using VoIP to make your phone calls.

Since all that is needed to make VoIP work is a broadband internet connection, one convenience is that you can carry your IP phone or ATA device with you when you travel so that you never have to pay exorbitant long distance calling charges.

Home users can use their regular telephone handsets and PSTN connections for VoIP after installing a device known as ATA (analog telephone adaptor) that converts the analog signals of PSTN phones into the digital signals required for internet based VoIP.

VoIP is a great and economic way to make telephone calls, both local and long distance. However, there is the problem with VoIP in that it is still not wireless. Now, it is possible to use a Wi-Fi connection to the internet via a computer but then that is not as wireless as a cellular phone. What is worse is that there seems to be no move towards integrating VoIP into the cellphone.

VoIP has been rapidly embraced by several large businesses in a short time due to diversity of its features and the low cost for local and long-distance calling. In VoIP, all the audio data is transmitted over the internet along with other data. This results in a much lower running cost for both the VoIP provider as well as the consumer. Secondly, because of the internet, it is possible to use VoIP no matter where the caller or receiver is, as long as they are both connected to the internet. The technology has matured to the point were it is no long required of the communicating parties to even possess or use a computer in order to avail VoIP. All the parties using VoIP can be operating over the internet but without a computer.