Make cheap phone calls online

When the technology to make voice telephone calls over the internet was created and started to be distributed free of charge, many people forecast the end of the traditional phone company.

Such concerns have proved unfounded, as voice over IP (VoIP), the technology behind internet phone calls, has simply become another choice.

Now we are increasingly seeing telephones that can make calls in the traditional fashion when needed, but also use the internet when it’s cheaper or more convenient.

Such combination phones give consumers a genuine choice over where they buy their services, not just at contract renewal time but every time they make a call. In future, the idea that each household had a phone, physically connected to one socket that was run by a single supplier, may seem quaint.

Internet calls without a PC
The ability to make calls over the internet has been a boon to many but until recently it was hampered by the fact that people need to be on a computer to make and receive such calls. Most telephone traffic still flows over traditional phone lines and merging the two technologies has not been easy.

Put simply, internet telephony software takes the sound of the human voice and converts it into data that can be sent over the internet. Anyone with the right software can make and receive calls, sometimes without paying for anything more than the internet connection.

When it hit the mainstream, several phone companies began to sell internet-only handsets, which relied on Wifi alone to make calls. But these didn’t prove popular with most people, because the bulk of telephone traffic uses traditional phone lines and no-one wanted to give that up.

In recent years, however, a new type of phone has come on the market: the combination device. This uses standard phone lines just like a traditional phone but also can connect to a broadband router to make calls over the internet, combining the best of both worlds.

Such phones are usually cordless. Most use a radio standard called Dect (Digital Enhanced Cordless Telecommunications) to allow home phone users to make and receive calls within around 50 metres of the base station attached to the phone socket and router.

Getting started
Combined VoIP/Dect phones, as they are often labelled, may sound complex but they are easy to get up and running. They typically come with a base station that has a socket for a standard telephone line and a way of connecting to your internet connection, either using a USB or Ethernet cable, or using a wireless network if you have one.

To use the internet telephone function, you will need to set up an account with a service provider. By far the most popular is Skype, and many combination phones are designed to use only this service. Other providers include Vonage and Windows Live Messenger. Most services allow you to make free calls to other users of the same service but then charge to call everyone else - these are referred to as off-network calls.