VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol)

Vonage is a company who offers a commercial Voice over IP network along with a SIP company who provides phone service using a broadband connection. There are a few requirements that a user must have in order to become a Vonage subscriber. First off you must either purchase or already have a branded Voice over IP router or have a telephone adapter that is able to connect to your central router or broadband modem. You also need at least a 30-90 kbit/s upload speed, and a reliable QoS optimized connection so that your calls will have the least amount of lag and jitter.

One neat option that Vonage offers is the ability to choose any phone number in your country regardless of where you actually live. Of course if another Vonage customer already has the phone number you would like, you would have to choose another number. There are also a few area codes in the United States where Vonage is not available. Vonage subscribers can also purchase extra virtual numbers, for a monthly fee of course. So in other words if you live in California but you have a large amount of people calling you from New York, then you can get a New York area code telephone number so they will only have to pay for calling a local number. The virtual numbers option is mostly beneficial to businesses that have cliental all over their country or even in other countries where Vonage is offered.

All Voice over IP companies including Vonage has the difficulty of over coming the Enhanced 911 problem. Vonage has its own emergency phone service, which requires every Vonage subscriber to register their physical address. Of course if there was a power outage your Vonage service would not work, so they recommend that their subscribers have a mobile phone or another traditional phone line to use as a backup for such circumstances. Your Vonage service should still work in a power outage if you had either an emergency generator or battery backup.

Vonage offers their services for low prices with lots of extras. Some of the extras that Vonage offers are: call waiting, voicemail, caller ID, free calls to Europe, 24/7 customer service, among many others.