By Rajani Baburajan, TMCnet Contributor

Residential and business customers alike are looking for ways to reduce telephony costs. Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) is the answer to their needs.

With business VoIP solutions like hosted PBX (News - Alert) and virtual PBX, businesses can save several thousands of dollars per year on communications and infrastructure costs. VoIP also benefits residential customers by allowing them to call dear ones abroad at much cheaper rates than traditional telephony.

Industry reports say VoIP is now used in one-third of businesses today, and is growing in popularity each year. Despite the growing popularity of residential and business VoIP, people are not so sure about who provides the right VoIP service at the right cost.

MyVoIPProvider.com, a website dedicated to providing information on VoIP services and products, is now helping companies and customers pick the right business VoIP providers that can deliver the customized service to them.

The website has released the list of top five best VoIP providers in terms of their price.

Craig Communications, a hosted phone service provider, offers hosted phone service with nationwide coverage. For business VoIP customers the company provides the facilities, the hardware, and the phone service. Each extension runs for $19.95/month per extension, with an unlimited amount of extensions. Some of the free features of the service include auto attendant, caller ID, call waiting, conference calling, voicemail to email, and music-on-hold.

Jive is another business VoIP provider suitable for businesses of all sizes. The lowest business VoIP package starts at $29.99/month per extension. The next size is for five to nine users and costs $25.95/month per extension. The 10 to 24 users plan starts at $23.95/per extension per month. Medium businesses with 25 to 49 users can choose Jive’s mid-size plan at $21.99/month per extension. Companies with more than 50 users are offered Jive’s Enterprise plan for $19.95/month per extension.  

Nextiva is a well-known business VoIP provider offering more than 100 business-ready features, including call routing, dial-by-name directory, mobile phone integration and online fax. Nextiva offers several levels of package tiers. The Office Pro plan starts at $34.99/month per extension for one to four users. The mid-level plan starts at $19.95/month per extension for 21 or more users. The Office Enterprise plan comes with some extra features on top of those included in the Office Pro plans and starts at $44.95/month per extension for one to four users and lowers to $34.95/month per extension for 21 or more users.

Vocalocity (News - Alert) offers business VoIP plans starting with one unlimited extension for $39.99/month that allows businesses to add as many extensions as they want, either as metered or unlimited extensions. Metered and virtual extensions cost $14.99/month. Metered extensions follow the pay-per-minute model, and it is suitable for companies that make a limited amount of phone calls each month.

8x8 (News - Alert) offers a wide variety of plans to suit any business’s needs. Small businesses can choose basic unlimited plans that start at $29.99/month per extension, or they can choose metered extensions which pay by the minute. 8x8 also offers global extensions with international calling features.

GetVoIP.com (News - Alert) is another valued resource for everything you want to know about VoIP. It provides news and featured articles on industry trends, comparisons between different business VoIP providers and reviews from various customers on a variety of services.