Thousands of people decide to switch over their residential phone lines to a cheaper Voip service provider each year, but many are put off by the first obstacle: how to find the right provider from the hundreds on the internet when you search.
It's a massive choice and from this huge list of providers you will somehow have to whittle this down to a manageable list that you can use to make your selection. Don't simply sign up to one that's the best well-known, I worked at a company where they went with a market brand-leader and they were switching back to their landline system within a month due to dropped calls.
It's always worth taking a look at local providers in your area. For example, if you are in Chicago, one of the regional players there is Phonepower, they will be local, you know where the office are, and if you do have any problems with support issues, you can't get told that it's their distance from your location that's causing loss of signal, which was the primary excuse given by our other provider.
On the Phone Power site you will see a breakdown of each of the different phone plans, simply have a quick browser and select the option that fits your requirements. It's often a good tip to select a shorter term monthly plan first so as to get a feel for the technology and the quality of service. You can always upgrade to a longer and effectively cheaper plan if you are happy.
Each plan comes with lots of handy features such as caller ID and voicemail, you will also get an allowance of free minutes that you can use on international calls. The procedure for calling these is the same as from a landline, simply check the international page on the website where they list the country codes and the rates normally associated with each area.
