By now, most people consider landline home phones to be obsolete, since most people have cell phones or even smartphones that do the same thing but more. The common question is, why pay more for a phone line that isn't mobile? The answer to this question is that consumers can actually pay less for a home phone line by switching to a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) home phone system.
Traditional home phone service providers charge $30 or more for each phone line per month, and though this is lower than the traditional smartphone bill, there's little reason to pay this much for a redundant phone line. These prices exist because traditional copper-wire phone systems operate on a system that is nearly 150 years old.
Residential VoIP phones, on the other hand, use the Internet to route calls with much lower infrastructure requirements because the calls are translated from traditional analog phone signals to Internet-friendly digital ones. The result is much cheaper phone calls with higher audio quality.
Audio quality was a problem early on in the designs of some VoIP companies like magicJack, but time and practice have changed things. Now, magicJack offers unlimited phone calling to all of North America for as little as $20 per year – that's under $1.75 per month!
Other companies like Ooma and NetTalk offer similar services at similar prices. Ooma charges an initial fee that totals close to $200 to port over an existing phone number, but unlimited service to the U.S. and Canada starts at $4 per month. This service includes caller ID, voice mail, and more. NetTalk charges $30 for number porting and $40 per year for unlimited local and long-distance calling, but can be upgraded to an International North American plan for only $70 a year that includes Mexico, Puerto Rico and Canada.
What's great about all of these plans is that they allow consumers to lower how many minutes they actually need on their cell phones, since almost all residential VoIP services offer unlimited calling. That means saving money all around for residential consumers, which is always a good thing.