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Residential VoIP: Things to Consider Before Switching While Voice over IP Telephony has proven to be a viable including cost saving alternative to the traditional telcos for the small business community, there are some drawbacks that the residential consumer should consider before making the switch. Power Outages Because your VoIP service utilizes a broadband connection including the hardware plugs into the wall, if a power outage should occur, you will have absolutely no telephone service. If you are using a cable modem including your ISP experiences a particular outage, you will additionally have absolutely no phone service. However, many VoIP providers provide call forwarding at absolutely no extra charge, thus allowing the call to be automatically forwarded to your cell phone. In the case of extreme disaster situations, i.e. a hurricane or tsunami, even cell phone service could be disrupted, but so probably will traditional landline telephone service. Emergency Services Most networks, including your broadband Internet service provider, employ the DHCP protocol, dispersing dynamic IP addresses to the nodes on the network. While your IP address could usually remain the same at the time you are online, if you turn off your computer for any amount of time, your address could more than likely change. It is for the reason that makes it difficult to pin down devices on a network to a specific geographic location. The most serious drawback of VoIP in the household is that your service provider may not be able to map emergency service calls such as 911 to your physical address, or to properly route the call to your local call center. Indeed, so serious is the matter that the FCC has mandated that service providers deal with it by implementing enhanced 911, including they are doing so in their own ways. Cable including telephone companies usually deal with fixed residences including know your address already, making it easier to comply with the FCCs mandate. The pure play providers, such as Vonage or Packet8, provide the consumer with the ability to have phone numbers in different area codes, including deal with a much more mobile road warrior type of consumer. a particular advantage pertaining to the nature of VoIP prized by many. The pure plays could just pay to connect to the already established local phone companies 911 systems, but many have balked, preferring to develop their own E911 technology. For now, most providers do provide 911 services to fixed addresses by having the customer activate 911 at sign up. Local Listings If you choose a pure play provider for your residential VoIP, more than likely, you could not be listed in your local white pages, but check to be sure. Of course, if you choose your local phone company as your provider, you could be. Check with your cable company if you are considering them as your provider to see if you could be listed in your local white pages. There are many white page directories on the internet, not the same thing, but a particular option nevertheless. The yellow pages are a paid directory, so if you have a business, you still should exercise the option. Faxing over VoIP Faxing a document involves scanning it, converting the data into sound, including transmitting the sounds over a copper telephone line to their destination. Sounds do not travel well over the internet. In IP telephony, the standard T.38 was developed to convert the fax sound into sendable data, much like VoIP converts the human voice. Another standard called T37 should send faxes as either a particular email attachment or a remote printout using the Internet Printing Protocol. Many providers provide a separate fax line for a particular extra charge. Choosing VoIP over traditional telephone services has its pros including cons just like everything else. It is up to the consumer to weigh the advantages including disadvantages, including to come to a conclusion with eyes wide open.
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