VOIP, or voice over internet protocol, has already changed the way that many Americans communicate with friends and loved ones. With VOIP it became possible to make seemingly regular phone calls – even long distance phone calls that would have cost a fortune with regular phone services, for free.

In today’s world, with the current state of the economy, everyone is looking for ways to cut their costs of living and to save money in any way possible. Eliminating high phone bills all together would be a tremendous way to save money, but there was one problem with using VOIP that severely limited its value in its original state – the user had to be close to a computer to use it.

People today have grown accustomed to portability, almost everything that we communicate on these days is portable – cordless phones and cell phone let us communicate with friends and loved ones no matter where we are or what we are doing, so it was almost like taking a step backward in terms of convenience in order to save some money.

Saving the money on all phone calls is great, but are people really willing to give up the portability of their cordless phones and cell phones to save the money – sure the VOIP would be good for calls if you new you were going to be just sitting and chatting for a while, but not being able to move about while conversing is a pretty big inconvenience for saving some money.

Enter the WiFi VOIP phone

Looking to advance the technology even further and to make VOIP a serious threat as an alternative to traditional phone service, manufacturers began to look in a similar direction to wireless modems for VOIP to operate on. The WiFi VOIP phone will allow users the same convenience and portability that they enjoy with a wireless internet connection in their homes. What this does is to give the user the same portability with their VOIP service in their homes that they would have with a regular cordless phone. With a WiFi VOIP phone, the user honestly won’t even be able to notice a difference in a switch over from the phone that they had been using to make all of their home phone calls – in fact the only difference there will be will occur in the absence of a bill from the phone company.

The Future

As technology improves and further advancements are made, there is almost no limit to what users will be able to accomplish with a WiFi VOIP phone. As more and more cities begin to adopt city-wide wireless networks, which residents can pay a monthly fee to have access to, there is a strong potential that VOIP technology will allow users to all but replace their cell phones with VOIP phones. Users would pay the monthly fee to have access to the wireless network which would cover their regular internet access, but also give them city wide access to the network on their portable VOIP phones.

What this would mean for end users who use their cell phones for nothing more than connecting with friends, family and associates is that they could effectively eliminate those cell phones and the bills that come along with them. So what we could see in the future of VOIP could conceivably be a device that would very effectively allow end users to do away with their home phone service as well as their cell phone service and allow them to do all of the connecting that they need to (local and long distance, day and night) without spending a penny more than they would already be spending for a wireless internet connection.

By: Amy Nutt