In the era of the almighty Smartphone seems a counter-intuitive question to ask. BUT it is worth examining the facts. Many homeowners who have yet to migrate to VoIP wonder if it would be easier to have their daily telecommunications needs solely based on mobile phones. For all intents, it is a very valid question, as traditional pots (non-VoIP) land-line costs can be excessive for the little service and use these providers. Here we’ll look to review some points of having mobile phones (or Smartphone) vs a VoIP based land-line. If you look for some more insight just check our Home Phone Cost Comparison
By now everyone aged 18 or older does have a mobile and probably younger too so in the normal household you’ll have at least 3 or 4 mobile phones. About 75% of the devices sold in Canada will be in the form of a Smartphone. Something that most people don’t realize is these modern smartphones, in-spite of having the word phone appended to it has not been designed for the one thing a phone should primarily do: talking. The Smartphone is designed to allow interacting with a plethora of apps, watching TV/Videos, and providing directions by means of maps/GPS and facilitating taking pictures and broadcasting to the world what wonders one has captured. If you have ever been in a conversation these newer large touch-screen devices do get quite hot with just a few minutes call. Also the longer the call is the faster the device’s battery drains.
On the side of VoIP phones, essentially any residential phone may be used with the service and you can talk for as long as you want. Chances are you will not have ever a battery issue. Battery life on residential/office phones using VoIP is not an issue.
Smartphone or mobile phones often get forgotten/misplaced or even stolen. With a residential or office phone using or not VoIP; that is very unlikely to happen. Though on the odd occasion, there’ll be the phone left on the fridge or in the laundry room; nothing a quick use of the recall ... on cannot fix.
A smartphone, especially those full touch-screen ones are built to be handled with care and in-spite of best design efforts are susceptible to have the screen shatter. Residential/business phones have been designed to endure use and abuse – especially from those little ones in the house!
Calling plans associated with Smartphone often allow local area calling, and its start getting expensive if looking to have nationwide unlimited calling. VoIP calling plans, majority offer nationwide unlimited calling (although always fair usage policy always applies; each provider will set these differently but we are always talking on the 1000s minutes per month) frequently paired with the US calling along with some international minutes. Some of the most feature-rich VoIP providers also offer an app where you can have your land-line number also in your Smartphone to make and receive calls. Such is the plan from Phone Power for Residential and Small Business plan.
International calling using Smartphone or mobile phones is very expensive, even if having a monthly international calling plan; even if you subscribe to say a $30 dollars monthly international calling plan you may end up paying 3-times that amount for reasons that entirely defy logic. VoIP providers offer very competitive rates even in their most standard offers; so it’s easier to just pick-up the phone and call.
In summary; having a VoIP residential and/or business land-line is an inexpensive solution to resolve the shortcomings of just having mobile phones. A modern smartphone shall be seen for what it is, a portable device that allows multiple points of interactions which are ideally complemented with a VoIP land-line to fully address calling needs of the modern world.