Web Phones Save You and Your Customers Money

June 15, 2007 — -- If your home-based business relies on a lot of telephone time, you might want to consider a Web-based phone. The number of people who turned in their regular phones for Internet phones more than doubled last year. Nine percent of U.S. homes now have a Web phone. But that means the vast majority of Americans still have not yet taken advantage of this new technology and the serious savings that can come with it.

There are two ways to talk over the Internet: with a converter box that turns your regular home telephone into a Web phone, or by talking over the computer itself by using the built-in speaker or plugging in a headset.

New Yorker Ian Warren uses the Web phone company Vonage. For $14.99 a month, he gets 500 minutes to make calls all over the world. "I think it's about $600 a year that I'm saving by using Vonage over a landline phone," Warren said.

ABC News shopped around and found a traditional phone company charging $43 a month for unlimited local and long distance, plus typical extras like call waiting.

A similar service from a cable company was advertised at $85 and up because you have to purchase premium TV channels to get the phone service.

The leading company offering Internet calling charges $25 a month for unlimited calling. That's on top of whatever you pay for your high-speed Internet connection.

But there are also computer calling programs like Skype, where you talk over your computer. If the person you're calling has the software on his or her computer too, even international calls are free! That could do wonders if you regularly talk to suppliers or colleagues in other countries. Alternatively, if you want to be able to talk to less technologically advanced people who only have regular phones, you can pay as little as $2.50 a month for unlimited calls.

"I think it's a foregone conclusion among telecom companies that at some point all telephone calls are going to go over the Internet," said Stephan Beckert of Telegeography, a research group.