I’ve heard that VoIP offers free phone calls – is this true?
Yes and no. Most VoIP services offer free calls to people who have signed up to the same service as you (even if they live abroad), but charge to make calls to traditional landlines (either a fixed monthly fee or pay as you go (PAYG)). You may have to pay a fee to set up your VoIP service to receive calls too. Call costs are often lower though than using a traditional landline service to make calls because the type of connection is much more cost-effective.The reason that calls to other computers are free but you have to pay for calls to and from landlines is that with PC to PC calls you’re only involving the broadband network, so it costs no more than sending an email (subject to download limits). When the PSTN network is involved the service provider has to make the connection by opening a gateway between the two networks, which incurs a greater cost.
