The Best VoIP Providers and Phone Services of 2017

We're all attached at the hip to our smartphones nowadays, but there are plenty of reasons you may not want to rely on a mobile number alone. Coverage dead spots and dropped calls are still a regular occurence, but landlines are antiquated and expensive. So for a home or office where people are on the phone regularly for important calls, what do you do? If you don't want to plop down a lot more money each month to pay your local telephone or cable operator—AT&T, Comcast, Time Warner, Verizon, and the like—for more landlines or mobile numbers, the internet is here to help. Lower-cost Voice-over-IP (VoIP) services take advantage of your broadband internet connection to offer you a powerful web-based phone service with all sorts of nifty communication features. VoIP platforms give you a low-cost alternatives to big phone companies and carriers, plus bells and whistles like software phones (softphones) and mobile apps, call routing and recording, SMS text, and video conferencing capabilities. Finally, there are higher-end, business-grade VoIP services for larger companies with more heavy-duty enterprise features.

VoIP providers come in all shapes and sizes. In this roundup, we review traditional VoIP providers that started with calling and have gradually added a wider array of features. We also review cloud-based services such as Skype that began as video conferencing services and have since rolled out significant VoIP capabilities. Some VoIP providers use entirely cloud-based user interfaces (UIs) and calling, while others offer both web-based calling and routing through physical handsets, which are available from a number of sources.

Polycom is one vendor that offers a wide variety of IP-based products including phones. RingCentral, for example, partners with Polycom for their handsets. Polycom also offers solutions which work with Microsoft Skype for Business. Whether you're dealing with a combined hardware and software solution or a fully cloud-based application, VoIP services provide a powerful combined communication platform to keep you connected in exactly the way that suits you.

What Is VoIP?

The way in which voice signals are transmitted nowadays has evolved significantly since the original invention. In the beginning, the method involved a very simple point-to-point connection between two devices. Over time, the concept of switching was introduced, enabling the routing of calls to multiple devices using an operator to physically "switch" a user's phone and connect the call to an incoming line. Early versions of automated call switching used electromechanical switches to connect outside lines to a specific handset. With the introduction of digital circuits came the ability to automate the switching functions and make it simpler for the user to make and receive calls.

The concept of the exchange came about as the number of telephone lines began to grow, and the grouping of numbers by a central office or local exchange became necessary. This concept utilized the idea of a three-digit exchange number, which is still used today as the first three numbers after the area code. With a four-digit extension number a single exchange could, theoretically, handle up to 10,000 numbers from 0000 to 9999. The same idea was used for large corporations with thousands of extensions in the form of a Private Branch Exchange (PBX).

VoIP is another evolutionary step in the transmission of voice over long distances. At the most basic level, it involves encoding voice into a digital form, which can then be transmitted over the internet. On the receiving end, the encoded signal must be decoded to let recipient hear the sender's voice. Other pieces of the puzzle include Session Initiation Protocol (SIP), which handles the setup of a VoIP call.

Technical details for SIP can be found in RFC 3261. Request For Comment (RFC) documents are maintained by the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) and document the bulk of protocols and services in use on the internet today. SIP can be used with a number of streaming protocols covering both voice and video. SIP is used to connect endpoints and establish a session which persists until disconnected.

Most VoIP providers incorporate a cloud-based PBX as a part of their product. This functions in much the same way a traditional PBX works on-premises in that it connects calls destined for a specific endpoint to an incoming line. Another key function of a cloud-based PBX is to provide a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) gateway to facilitate the connection of VoIP calls to a physical phone number