Some time ago experts thought that may be VoIP International phone service is a hyped up technology. But not today! Companies such as Vonage, eBay (Skype), and iBasis (Pingo) have used the technology to their advantage to take the lead in the VoIP market. Besides, companies such as Cisco, Linksys, Earthlink and even Microsoft are trying to take advantage of this technology and grab a piece of share in this intriguing market. But that's not all. Voice-over-IP has grabbed a remarkable portion of the communications market.
One of the issues that every new technology has to address is the high switching costs for consumers. In other words, there are many great new technologies out there. But, unless it makes sense, financially, for consumers to switch to those new technologies, they will simply not switch. The key for innovators is to keep the switching costs as low as possible. Companies such as Vonage and Skype have done just that. These companies make the switching process convenient and easy, as long as someone has high-speed internet access. They also offer many extra features over the standard phone service for a much lower price. In that sense, the customers have nothing to lose and very much to gain. Even easier, companies such as Pingo allow people to take advantage of the same low VoIP long distance phone call rates by dialing a local access number from their land or even their mobile phone.