You probably already know what VOIP is - the technology that allows you to make and receive telephone calls by use of a reliable high-speed Internet connection at your home or office. You probably already know that if your high-speed Internet connection is not rock solid, stable, and reliable without dropping out frequently, your VOIP service is not going to be at a level where you can really depend on it, and that aspect of VOIP is not the problem of the VOIP provider, but is an issue that you need to take up with whatever company is providing you with high-speed Internet access.

You already know that VOIP will not work well with a satellite Internet connection, and hopefully did not discover that the hard way. And you may have already discovered that when your high-speed Internet service goes down, your VOIP phone is not useable at all, which can be a danger if you are in a situation where you need to call 911 in case of some type of emergency.

And you may have already received your VOIP billing statement, where you only paid $17 or $20 for the month, even though you had 1800 minutes of long distance calling from your wife to her brother on the other side of the country and from you to your sister down south somewhere, even though neither one of them have a VOIP phone. What a pleasant surprise to discover such a low bill when that same 1800 Voip of long distance with your phone from the phone company was well over $75.

You find it so nice to have caller ID on your VOIP phone so you can see who is calling, and calling waiting so that you can put a caller on hold while you answer another incoming call, and having voice mail that you can access from anywhere, and all those features of your VOIP service are standard features that you do not pay extra for, whereas you used to pay the big bucks to the phone company for similar features.

Can it get any better than that? Yes it can and we will talk about two features of VOIP that many people are not aware of that makes your VOIP service even more useful.

Plug In Anywhere

When you travel to your parent's house across the state or fly to your in-laws house across the country, or even when you travel out of town and are stuck in a hotel for a few days, you can take your phone and your phone number with you, if you have VOIP.

Simply plug your adapter box for your VOIP phone into a spare jack on the router for the high-speed Internet connection where you are. It doesn't matter that your parents use Comcast and you use Charter for your high-speed Internet, or that you have cable Internet and they have DSL Internet, as long as it is reliable and stable, you are set.

Once you are plugged in, you are now making and receiving calls at your regular phone number! For example, even if you live in Chicago and you are plugged into your parent's high-speed Internet connection at their home in Phoenix, your VOIP phone still rings when somebody calls your VOIP Chicago number.