Don't be Afraid of Voip

 

I made a daliance into Voip some months ago and it all went a bit pear shaped.

But I do spend a lot of money on phone calls and Voip does look to be a sensible way to cut those costs.

1. I used to have three BT lines into the house and these cost about £120 each. But since Celia died, I don't really have a need for Fax now, so that line went to save money. I could probably get rid of one of those lines in the future, but at the moment I need both, as broadband round here is so slow and the two lines give me about 2Mb, which has to sustain not only myself but Lyndsey in the Stud.

2. Calls on Voip are much cheaper. For instance, typically you will pay about a pence a minute for calls to places like the USA and Germany and about half BT's rates for those to mobiles.

So I have installed four Voip 'lines' into the stud. These cost £2.99 each and act just like normal phone lines. I've also chosen numbers slightly out of area in Newmarket, as this is so much better for a stud than Haverhill.

So what advantages do I get?

1. Obviously, there is a cost saving. I have cut one line and calls look to be about half what I was paying before.

2. I used to divert my main number 01440-783789 to my mobile, but now I've diverted it permanently to my main Voip number 01638-778586. I do pay a bit for the diversion, but a lot less than I did.

3. When I get a messaage to the Voicemail, I have arranged Outlook to send a text message to my phone. And of course I can access my Voicemail from any phone in the world.

4. All Voicemail is delivered as files that I can play in my Windows Media Player. This means that if you are in a business, where sometimes you need to keep these files for legal purposes, you've already got them.

5. Celia was a family barrister and a lot of her clients were abused over the phone by ex-partners. Go to Voip and everything is there for the Courts.

And what happens if the Internet goes down?

1. I still have my standard BT line, which is permanently diverted to the Voip number. If you have a power or Internet failure, all of your calls will still get recorded on the Voicemail system for later recovery.

2. You can still dial out on the BT number and of course cancel the diversion.

Not the greatest of inconveniences and probably much less than losing power or broadband.

So try it and remember that if you spend a lot of money on lines, calls to mobiles or abroard, you will get a quick saving.