VOIP phone service & stopping those Robo calls

You can eliminate all unwanted calls with call blockers like NoMoRobo and you will save money and improve service options with the right VoIP phone service like PhonePower.

What is VoIP:

VoIP stands for Voice over Internet Protocol and is the modern way to get home and or Business telephone Service.  VoIP Services start as low as $5/month.  Choosing the right VoIP provider and adding the free NoMoRobo can lower your phone bill while eliminating spam, scam and Robo calls.  However, if it is not set up correctly with a high value provider then you may not save money and all the those spam calls will get through.  So, many people have disconnect their home phones often out of frustration with phone scams, marketing and charity calls.  That  annoyance plus the expense. I mean:  If it comes with commercials it should be free!  Should it not? Why pay for traditional phone or even Vontage @ over $250 a year just so that telemarketers can annoy you 30 times a week?  

There are whole industries aimed at capturing your $$ for home or Small office telephone service.  VoIP should be cheaper because it can borrow some of your internet service for your phone service.  It is also offers robust useful advanced and flexible phone service options because features are based on easy to configure browser based setup procedures.  You also experience lower equipment costs because the expensive hardware is all on a server shared by thousands of customers.  You just need a low cost gateway that changes the signals from IP internet signals to you plain old telephone lines already in your home or business.  VoIP is not new.  I believe that our family made the switch around 2004.  Back then traditional phone companies were even less competitive with VoIP so our annual savings were very high.  We get 2 lines for a grand total of $100/year unlimited calling.

Perhaps one of the most tempting reasons to move to VoIP is that it can be configured for free to stop all those unwanted calls from scammers, marketing, political and Robo calls form Heather with Card member services.  Yep, even block political and “charity telemarketers” callers.  Some of these scammers illegally mine the national Do Not Call list.  Yep, a good idea that backfired in real life.  See FTC stops Rocall scam.  There are also devices that work with old fashioned phone services but I never liked paying more to get less.

Here are my choices for phone service.  There are other good and bad options out there.  I list these as compatibles to start with.  

1.  Google Voice – Free, highly smart functioning and did I say Free?  Having at least 1 other phone or even no phone still makes this service useful for ANY HUMAN with occasional internet access.  Even homeless people can have google voice.   Face it.  In 2017 there are some shady people out there.  Some you know and others you never need to meet.  So it is wise to have a free number that can help your filter and block specific callers or groups of callers.  For example send all John’s numbers to the custom voice mail greeting:  “John: never call me again you Jerk!”   Or optionally send all unknown callers to your voice mail while favorite clients and special people always get though.  There is even a check mark for Google Voice Global Spam Filtering.  So your Google Voice is a perfect number to put on your business card.  With your own Google Voice you can even, keep your work (Google Voice) number and your favorite clients after you change jobs!  An accountant I know was changing companies.  His former IT department wiped his cell phone during the exit interview.  He even lost his family’s numbers.  With Google voice he could have had his own layer of contacts and his own cell number etc.  His work cell phone and his personal cell number could just have been the same device with a free google voice app keeping his life his!   Just re-print your own business card at VistaPrint or if you supply your own cell then print your google voice as one of the number on your card etc.
2. NoMoRobo   – This works best with VoIP and iOS phone users but is growing fast into android as well.  Extremely smart call blocker for telemarketing, charity, telephone scammers and robo calls.  Very responsive community based call blocker minimizes even those scams that change phone numbers quickly including: Stopping Heather with card member services.  If your VoIP service is compatible then it is easy to set-up.  Custom instructions are found at www.NoMoRobo.com   You may also compare other call blocking systems.  But NoMoRobo is free and seams to win all the comparison tests including an FTC contest.  So it is a good place to start. ABC has a few alternate call blocking ideas.
3. Phone Power – $99 a year gets you 2 lines of unlimited local and long distance calling.  There also lower cost packages for limited minutes and at the same time they offer larger packages for larger businesses with more lines.  They have acceptable customer service.  Low band width needed.  200 features.      Power is Compatible with NoMoRobo.  There are many other VoIP options reviewed at GetVoip.com read skeptically as may sites prioritizes higher priced vendors of they are also advertisers.  In the VoIP world…. larger companies like Vontage charge twice as much per month so that they can afford advertising and bribing these review sites.  Other companies like Phone Power have a different marketing strategy.  They rely Value (low pricing and customer satisfaction) to retain customers.  High priced options use advertising and sponsorship to constantly replace clients.  Numbers are portable so test Phone power.  If it fails then try another service.  It is easy to switch.