There was a time when every telephone call traveled across copper telephone wires.

That system became known as POTS, or Plain Old Telephone Service.

For more than a century, it connected homes and businesses across the country.

Today, most modern home phone services use a different technology called VoIP, which stands for Voice over Internet Protocol.

Instead of sending your voice as an electrical signal over copper wires, VoIP converts your conversation into thousands of tiny digital data packets and sends them across your internet connection.

Although the technology behind the scenes has changed dramatically, using the phone still feels very familiar.

When you subscribe to a residential VoIP service such as Vonage, you're typically provided with a small adapter that connects to your internet service.

Think of that little box as your own miniature telephone company.

It creates a dial tone.

It detects when you hang up.

It generates busy signals and error tones.

It even allows you to plug in many of the same telephones you've used for years.

From your point of view, very little has changed.

You pick up the receiver.

You hear a dial tone.

You dial the number.

The phone rings.

Someone answers.

The conversation begins.

The experience feels almost identical to the traditional telephone service many of us grew up with.

VoIP offers several advantages over traditional telephone service.

• Lower monthly cost
• Excellent voice quality
• Modern calling features
• Easy installation
• The ability to use many existing telephones

In fact, many people are surprised to learn that modern VoIP often sounds cleaner than traditional copper telephone service because there is virtually no static or background line noise.

Yes.

The biggest difference between VoIP and the old Plain Old Telephone Service is power.

Traditional telephone service supplied electricity through the telephone line itself.

That meant your home phone often continued working even when the neighborhood lost electrical power.

VoIP depends on your home's electricity and internet connection.

If the power goes out, your modem, router, and VoIP adapter also lose power unless they're connected to a battery backup.

For most people, this isn't a major concern.

It's simply something worth understanding before replacing a traditional landline.

VoIP isn't a completely different way to use a telephone.

It's simply a different way to move your voice from one place to another.

For most people, the experience feels exactly like using a traditional home phone.

The technology has changed.

The conversation hasn't.

When I first started selling telephones, nearly every call traveled across copper wires.

Today, almost every long-distance call and many local calls eventually travel across IP networks somewhere along the way.

In other words, even many traditional telephone calls now spend part of their journey using internet technology behind the scenes.

The biggest surprise for many customers is discovering that switching to VoIP doesn't mean learning how to use a new kind of phone.

In most homes, it simply means connecting your existing telephone to a small adapter instead of a wall jack.

Sometimes the biggest technological revolutions happen quietly.

Helping people make smart buying decisions means separating what has changed from what hasn't.

That's exactly why I created JackWagon.