"Is Choosing a VOIP Broadband Phone Provider like Picking a Needle out of a Haystack?"

If you just want to pick up the phone and dial the way you normally do, or if you AND who call you most often aren't computer savvy—like grandparents, for instance—then a VOIP long distance plan is for you. If you're making mostly social calls (200 minutes/month or less), then a limited VOIP long distance plan is perfect. You can phone local and long for  a fixed rate per month. You'll find that 200 minutes goes a long way. (The average number of phone minutes per month per household is around 100.)

If you're into saving money on long distance calls to friends and family and don't mind using your computer to do it, an unlimited Softphone package is a great idea. The people you're calling don't have to be on their computer. They just answer the phone like normal.  But you make and receive calls from a program that stores your contacts for you and has a point-and-click keypad for dialing.

If you send and receive exchange email with friends and family regularly, then chances are they've got enough computer savvy to use a VOIP softphone. When both of you use the same softphone, the call is free. But make sure they have high speed internet, not dial-up. VOIP works best with broadband cable or DSL (the "always on" internet). Try one of the free VOIP services and invite your friends to join too.

If you want to simplify...one phone bill for both local and long distance and low rates for international...try a subscriber VOIP service. An unlimited long distance plan can be paid monthly for under $20. You can also pay yearly for the best deal overall. You get lots of free calling features too, like voicemail, forwarding, caller ID, conference calling, and call waiting.

What if you have family or business clients in another state or another country? Staying in touch with them is important, right? You can make it easy for them, and cheap too, by getting a VOIP plan that gives you virtual numbers in any destination you want. When they call you, they dial a local number and pay for just the cost of a local call (which could even be free depending on where they are).

If you have an order desk, let your customers call you on a toll free number. Most VOIP unlimited long distance plans allow you to add on a toll free number for around $5/month, considerably less than what the phone company charges.

Most VOIP service providers offer a package deal which includes free calls to a certain geographical area. For example, if you make a lot of overseas calls you want a package that includes these calls in the basic monthly fee.

If you receive most of your calls from a certain geographic area or city, try to find a service provider that offers a PSTN phone number in that location. This will allow people to call you at local rates.

While VOIP is here to stay, there are still occasional setbacks. Service outages can occur, and during power blackouts, you won't have phone service because VOIP relies on access to the internet.

Good news that there is even a VOIP product on the market that takes away this headache for you. PhoneGnome is the only broadband internet phone product that actually detects when it should use the internet and when it should use the regular phone line. So, when the power is out, you can make and receive calls on your regular phone.

VOIP services work best when your internet connection is cable or DSL, sometimes called broadband or highspeed internet. Dialup connections are too slow.

Find out how much bandwidth is required for a particular provider’s service. Here's link to Voip.com's bandwidth speed test.

In general 90 kbps download speed or better is and 128 kbps upload speed is the minimum bandwidth required for VOIP.

Make sure the VOIP company you choose supports Enhanced 911 (E911). E911 is a way that VOIP providers route your 911 call to the nearest Public Safety Access Point (PSAP) and provide your name, phone number and the home address associated with your account.

By law, companies that provide VOIP internet telephone services MUST disclose to you if they will be routing personal information for 911 calls or not. Skype, for example, discloses that it does not support any emergency calls to any type of hospitals, law enforcement agencies, medical care unit or any type of emergency services of any kind.

If you want to make 911 calls if necessary, but still want the low cost advantages of internet phone, you can have the best of both worlds with PhoneGnome. PhoneGnome is a unique device that lets you dial 911 over the regular phone line, bypassing the internet all together.