The Blog of Mark Shilensky

Posts Tagged ‘Business Tools’

This conference has been going amazing, there is a huge excitement building about some of the new announcements that are going to be made later today.  Stay tuned for the details in my next post.

For now, I wanted to talk a little about the VOIP (Voice Over Internet) technology and what it can mean for you.  How many of you are tired of the high prices that you are charged from companies like Verizon, Bell South, or the dozens of other local phone carriers, just to have a dial tone in your house?  I know when I lived in New York, Verizon was charging me over $60 per month for my home phone service, and I almost never used the phone.  On top of that, I was paying Time Warner an additional $70 for high speed internet.  This is when I first started to research “Digital Phone Service”. 

The most common one that everyone has heard of is Vonage.  The main reason that everyone has heard of them is due to all the money that they put into advertising, in print, on radio, on television, and on the internet.  Where do you think that all the money to pay for that advertising comes from? It is built into the rates that they are charging to the consumer.  Then there are the “free” services like Skype, which I’m sure you’ve heard about.  I was using Skype to chat with some of my friends in Australia and finally got fed up and stopped because of the very poor connection and also that I was tied to sitting in front of my computer with my wired headset on.

That is when I found 5Linx, which offers a wider array of services than Vonage, and is very competitive in their pricing structure.  This weekend, 5Linx announced that they are expanding their basic services.  In the basic package which is only $24.95 per month, they now include all your local and long distance calling within the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, United Kingdom, France, Spain, Italy, the US Virgin Islands, and China.  I know to most people, this isn’t anything too earth shattering, however, if you spend any money on long distance or international calling to any of these countries, then this service can save you a fortune.

Find out more about the service by CLICKING HERE.