VoIP - The Next Big Thing In Telecommunications...

Voice Over Internet Protocol or VoIP for short has been brewing up for the past few years.

This year the market has heated up and everyone is talking about it.

VoIP is taking over South African Communications....

Most large companies have entered onto the VoIP market and have realized savings of 50% or more off their phone normal phone bills.

VoIP services providers are battling with each other to get rid of large PBX systems for the corporations and install web conferencing possibilities plus wireless VoIP (wVoIP) over LAN's.

VoIP is latest internet communication...

Health institutions and other large, fragmented workforces are seeing the value of using wireless VoIP phones to communicate with each other.

This type of wireless VoIP setup can have massive cost savings over cell phones and is more efficient and effective than using pagers.

Businesses have caught up with the VoIP fiver but residential VoIP is still in its infancy. This is mainly because of the disadvantages that VoIP carries.

VoIP phone calls are clearer than cellphone connections...

The main disadvantage of VoIP is that not all current VoIP systems have power backups. When the power goes out in a residential area, the landline still works!.

VoIP only functions over a high-speed Internet connection, which needs electricity. If there is a power failure, then the VoIP connection will go down. This weakness in the VoIP system has made it unpopular with many people here in South Africa, especially during emergency situations.

The good news is that many VoIP hardware suppliers realized this and have started to deliver systems with power backup to address just this issue.

Start using VoIP and save 50% on calls

The second disadvantage of VoIP in residential areas is that not all current VoIP service providers offer full, 24-7 emergency services. After hour calls in Johannesburg, may be mistakenly rerouted to Durban for example. This will not remain like this because The South African Communications Commission has mandated that all phone service providers offer emergency service as standard.

According to the SACC, "All interconnected VoIP providers must automatically provide emergency services to all customers as a standard, mandatory feature without customers having to specifically request this service. VoIP providers may not allow their customers the option to "opt-out" of emergency service."

Residential VoIP is growing...

Residential VoIP is heading straight towards direct competition with the local phone companies' coveted landlines. A few years ago at a meeting in SACC's Publishing division, the managers said, "We need landlines, we need to stop losing landlines!" This was in direct response to cell phone companies such as Vodacom, MTN and Cell C taking away market share from the local market.

VoIP Internet Phone Calls Are #1

Now that VoIP is on the radar, the executive management teams for the local and long-distance phone companies must be huddling in their back offices, trying to figure out how they will stop the bleeding in the years to come.

VoIP is far much cheaper when compared to traditional local and long-distance phone service and overcoming the last of the residential disadvantages, one can be sure that South Africans will soon be taking notice.

Many will also start wearing t-shirt like "VoIP VIP" and "Got VoIP?" to herald in the new era in telecommunications.

Welcome to VoIP...