What is the difference?

[Ziggy]

Can someone explain to me the difference between Voip and just a regular phone or cell phone plan? Is there a major rate difference? What does voip have that another plan does not?

[Alecto]

Well VoIP is often through and internet service (eg. skype) and are often alot cheaper than regular phones.
Also cheaper to call other countries at around 1-3pence a minute (dunno about in USA)
Sometimes the voice quality isn't as good as regular phone but for the price it's good.

[Slim420]

Also, I believe with VoIP, You don't need any additional hardware (except a microphone and speakers, or a headset), so it's just like making a call from your computer. Unlike the broadband phone where you have to have internet service and an actual phone.

[iSurfer]

The problem with VoIP is that the voice is turned into digital in order to go through the internet. And then when it reaches the end phone, that digital will be converted again into analog which is the cause of the delay.

But when two people are both using computers, the conversion of analog to digital and back is a lot faster than with 2 people, one with a computer and the other on a phone.

The reason why it is cheaper than normal phone calls is that VoIP uses digital packets and it is cheaper rather than pure analog packets that phones are using.