Cellphones, Landline Phones, VOIPS: Which Is Best For You And Your Budget?

For many years, landline telephone service was the only telecommunication service available to keep in contact with each other. But thanks to technological advances, we have more options to choose from than land line service. However, along with these other options can include spending more money, and before we know it, we're spending more money on our telephone service than we ever had before. How can we choose which telecommunication services are best for us and what we need while saving money in the process? Well, let's look at the advantages and disadvantages of the 3 most popular forms of telecommunication services these days: cell phones, land lines phones, and VOIP phone service.

1. Cell phones

Advantages: The number one advantage to a cellphone is that it's portable. And with 3G and 4G networks, cell phone users are able to use their cell phone devices throughout other States without losing their service. Cell phones these days do come with a lot of features that can make life more convenient like apps, calendars and the like, but for the sake of conversation, we're just going to speak about using it for communication purposes. Cell phones are great to use solely if you're constantly away from home.

Disadvantages: There has been much controversy over prolong cell phone use and radiation exposure. For those who do use cellphones frequently, it would be best to put the phone in speaker mode or use a wireless earpiece device to limit radiation exposure. Bluetooth devices are good to use because the radiation levels are much lower in them. Cell phone plans can also be quite expensive and you can end up paying more for a monthly plan than you would with land line phone service. Another disadvantage to cellphone use is that you can lose signals from time to time, or your battery can run low at which you would have to plug the phone up to charge which can be inconvenient at times.

2. Landline Telephones

Advantages: Land line phones are good to use when you don't travel a lot. It is also the most reliable telecommunication service. Land line phone service generally can go out if there are storms, power outage, or if you just don't pay the bill. Calls are not dropped on landline phones like they are on cell phones. Landlines are no longer restricted to corded phones. Consumer have the options of using cordless phone or even putting calls on speaker phone to do things around the house while carrying on a conversation over the phone. Landline telephone monthly plans can also be less expensive than cell phone monthly plans. Landline telephone service is also more secure when transmitting sensitive data like credit card information.

Disadvantages: There aren't many disadvantages to a land line phone, but that some fine the wiring to be unsightly. The disadvantage some are finding with landline telephones is how to pay that bill plus a cell phone bill. If you choose to have both, pay less on the service that you use less. If you can make long distance calls from your cell phone, it may be best to just get a land line phone service for local calls only.

3. VOIPs

Advantages: VOIPs is a relatively cheap telecommunication service. VOIP stands for voice over internet protocol in layman's terms, is phone service or telecommunication service you can use through your internet connection. Two very popular VOIPs services are Skype, and Magic Jack. Skype's highest monthly subscription plan, the Unlimited World plan is $13.99, a price that may be virtually unheard of for monthly landline phone services or even cellphone monthly services. That plan includes calling 40 different countries. For those that just make calls in the US, they can get the $2.99 a month plan. Skype users can call other skype users for free. The monthly plans are for calls to landline or mobile phones. Magic Jack, a device that you can hook up into your computer's ubs port also allows you to make and receive phone calls when you plug your phone up to it. Magic Jack boast that you would never have to pay a monthly bill again. Well, this is true, but you would have to pay an annual bill. The device itself will cost you about $69.99. Then each year you would be ask to pay $19.99 to continue using it, which is still good considering it's a one time payment for the year.

Disadvantages: Both Skype and Magic Jack can only be used as long as the computer is turned on and has an internet connection. Once the computer is turned off, any calls made would go straight to voicemail. This may force some, who's using this as their only means of telephone service to leave their computers on all day, which some would not be happy to do. Calls made from Magic Jack can at times become choppy or robotic. If you have a reliable highspeed internet service, VOIP can be great to use and extremely inexpensive. But if you deal with your internet connection constantly dropping, this would definitely not be good to use. As long as your internet service is out, you would not be able to use the phone service which may not be good in case of an emergency.

We do have options to choose from for telephone services, but it's best to weight the pros and cons for services as well as cost to make sure we are choosing the best telephone services. When we do, even we can make wise choices in choosing the best service for us.