What's so good about VoIP

The main advantage of VoIP is the low cost of calls compared to the Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN). VoIP services don’t require by-the-minute pay for a call. So using this technology for international calls you will save heaps of money.

Moreover, as opposed to PSTN, such services as call forwarding, conferencing, automatic number reselection, identification of a caller are provided here for free, as well as the additional services:  video calls and video conferencing, instant messaging, and file transfer. It’s very convenient to manage your contacts within a VoIP client and always see which of them are available.

Thus, VoIP has become so popular because it’s much simpler, cheaper and handier to use the Internet connection both for data transmission and for voice transmission, and pay just one bill instead of two.

At the same time, conventional telephone networks have such an absolute advantage as a time-proved reliability, while VoIP is liable to all the challenges of the Internet connection and to all the computer issues. It means that your conversation through VoIP may be at any point cut off because your computer’s hung. Also it may suffer from such unpleasant effects as latency, jitter, and packet loss.

In VoIP there is also a problem with locating a caller, which means a challenge for emergency services like 911, and also for the police, when they try to track out offenders by their calls.

So, before the VoIP technology will be able to completely replace the PSTN services, it needs to overcome all these obstacles and greatly upgrade.