VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol and is quickly taking the internet over by storm.

The most obvious benefit of VoIP is the big savings it provides compared to what people pay for their phone service from their telephone company.

Let us have a closer look. Say you pay $30 a month for your basic telephone line, that will be $360 a year. That does not include any extras like Caller ID, Call Forwarding or Voice Mail. Those alone can easily bring the annual basic phone bill to over $500 plus taxes.

All that without considering any long distance costs. And you know how much that can add up to.

Now, many VoIP providers give you a year of full featured internet telephony for under $200. And that includes just about any extra calling features, like Caller ID, that you can think of. Then, you also get with it a long distance to and from traditional phones - for a fraction of the cost of what you can get from your local telephone company or even from the best long distance discount service! Plus - you can also get some extra perks like local phone numbers in various parts of the words.

As if that weren't enough the voice quality of VoIP is often much superior to what you get from a regular phone. The main reason for that is that the regular phone everyone is so used to carries the voice over a very narrow band of sound frequencies - from zero to little over 3,000Hz (cycles per second). Meantime VoIP, in it's original digital range, gives you much wider voice bandwidth - comparable to the hearing range of an average human being which is 20Hz to 20,000Hz. When I first time used my VoIP phone and heard the voice quality of it for myself I could hardly believe my ears - it was that good!

If you are ready to join the VoIP wave there is no better time then now - the surf is up!