Today we are going to review one of the many VOIP phone services available. This one is from from Canada and is a company called Vopium. This company has been in the limelight recently with its lucrative offers and flexible services. It has been getting rave reviews about itself from various sources. To catch up with it, we decided to join the league and register with an account on the website. The website was really intuitive and very easy on eyes. It looked professional and relieved us of any paranoia one could have about trying a new VOIP service when there are other major league players in the market. The registration itself was fairly easy and took no more than 5 minutes to make us good to go. The plans were very easy on the pockets and the very existence of the pay as you go plan was a deal maker for us.

This VOIP service also had one very lucrative offer which offered to make unlimited calls to the loved ones in Canada. How cool is that? Vopium provides a software that sits on your mobile phone and whenever an international call is to be placed, the software comes into action and routes your call to the Vopium servers which then proceeds to forwarding that call to the desired international number. The software was flawless and it did not take us much to be accustomed to it. It worked every time we used it without a fail.

The voip rates are very good and varies from country to country. There is a particular group of international destinations that were given with a very cheap pricing. Pricing for the rest of the countries were well in the reason and lower that most of the services out there. We were interested in calling to UK and the rates were 0.02 euros for the land line 0.15 euros for the mobiles. These were amongst the cheapest rate we could find all over the internet.

The voice quality from our 3g network was average and had a lot of popping sound while we tried to call a destination internationally. It varied from location to location and also from time to time. The calls to landlines were really clear and without any disturbance but popping sound was there when we connected to a mobile phone. The customer care was supportive and we were told that due to temporary maintenance the popping sound was there. They followed up with us multiple times and were very professional with their technical approach. This VOIP service successfully got us glued with its robust service with amazing call rates and bagged for themselves the following rating:
Reliability: ****
Pricing: *****
Voice quality: **1/2
Customer Support: ****1/2
Bottom line: Very good VOIP service with very intuitive plans. Recommended.

Similar to e-mail and instant messaging, since this service is provided through the internet the associated costs are much lower than it would be over the regular telephone network. Monthly calling plans in North America are purchased for around $20 (e.g. 500 minutes of outbound calling anywhere in N.A.) to $30 (unlimited in N.A.) Costs per minute for overseas calling are also much lower than traditional phone services.

This product is similar to Skype, which is another service that is used to transmit audio via the Internet. In Skype, the user is typically interacting while stationed at their computer and has an interface which combines audio and video with instant messaging and other features (e.g. games.) They are also usually contacting other Skype users who are also stationed at their computers, or must pay a small per-minute fee to dial ‘regular’ phone numbers.

However, with Vonage the user is interacting in the traditional methods they are used to, i.e. picking up a phone and dialing the phone number they are trying to connect with, or answering the phone when it rings. The Internet aspect of the conversation takes place ‘behind the scenes’, with the telephone connecting to a router, modem or other device, which is then connected to the internet.

Vonage users are known to experience issues with call quality, particularly when using their internet bandwidth for other purposes (e.g. downloading or uploading music/video) while talking over their Vonage device. The most common incidence of poor call quality is a complete lack of sound, not being able to hear what the other participant in the conversation is saying – or if anything has been said at all. This is a particularly frustrating experience, but can often be remedied by decreasing the bandwidth load, hanging up and calling the person again.

Another common occurrence is very loud static, which again is sometimes remedied by calling the person again. For this reason Vonage is not usually recommended for business or professional uses. Technical support for Vonage is reached by their 800-number, although paradoxically it is often difficult or impossible to receive this help when it is needed (as the phone and/or internet problems may preclude the user from using their phone.) It is also particularly troubling to ‘diagnose’ the problem by telephone, as there are usually steps involved that necessitate re-starting your router / modem, which terminates the support call and makes any inbound/outbound calls impossible for a short period in the best scenario. In a worse scenario, if the troubleshooting methods disrupt the internet connection or Vonage device connection to a greater degree, the user then has no method to re-establish contact with technical support.

As with other VoIP systems it is recommended that it not provide your sole source of telephone contact, for such situations as described above, or more urgent emergency/safety reasons. Vonage stores information in its databases relating your phone number to a physical address in case of such emergencies where 9-1-1 can then be alerted of your address (a service built in to traditional land-line service.)

However, with Vonage this address that 9-1-1 would be alerted to may not be the correct address if it hasn’t been entered accurately, or been updated if the user has moved. The reason people use Vonage in spite of any quality issues and technical difficulties is particularly because of its low price, as well as its large presence / monopoly in the market.

Understanding what broadband internet service is happens to be important. If you don’t have this type of connection yet to the internet, you may want to use it. If you don’t’ have it, you are probably using dial up access to connect to the web.

While there isn’t anything wrong with dial up, the way that broadband works makes connecting to the internet faster and even simpler. When you use this method of connection, you’ll be able to get online faster and even surf through the pages you want to go to quicker. That allows many benefits in and of itself

Broadband is quite fast and it is the way of the future in technology for internet access. It may be a bit confusing to understand how broadband technology actually works, as it is somewhat complex, it is easy to understand just how beneficial it can be!

Broadband works by allowing for a larger amount of data to move faster all at one time. A good way to understand it is to consider your water pipes. If you replace your old pipe (dial up internet) with a larger, wider pipe (broadband) you are now allowing much more information to get through and therefore allowing the water to move through it easier.

The larger that the pipe is, the more water can go through it. The same is true with broadband. With the higher bandwidth that it uses, broadband can get you around the internet faster and even gets you off the telephone line you are currently using with dial up access.

The benefits of broadband include the ability to download information faster, the ability to connect to websites, to view movies and yes, even to talk to other people using your internet connection. That’s where VoIP comes in.

Before you can get the VoIP technology, you’ll also have to have the right tools to communicate over the internet. As we mentioned earlier, you can use your computer with a microphone or a headset with a microphone as well as an adapter for your telephone. They also make specialized phones for VoIP too.