Making a phone call across the country or to another country was once an expensive and quick experience. You needed a good reason to speak to the other party or you were just wasting money. Like the commercials on television, the fewer words and therefore fewer minutes on the phone saved you money.

Calling cards helped reduce the cost per minute and helped to make calling long distance from anywhere possible. Mobile phones started including long distance in their plans, but still charged you for airtime minutes.

With high speed internet, VOIP has become popular. With low cost plans to call anywhere in the world, the changing technology isn’t as big a barrier as it use to be. Because voice travels from computer to computer, paying multiple carriers for the use of their lines from one point to another is no longer necessary.

With services like Skype, you can chat with voice, text, and video all at the same time, anywhere in the world. You do need a microphone and webcam as a regular telephone cannot be plugged into your computer. The technology still lacks clear crisp quality, similar to a cellphone in a weak signal area.

Skype provides a computer to phone dialing for a fee, but could be a cheap alternative to many long distance calls.

If you are worried about customers making long distance calls to your company, you can use online services that will provide local numbers in area codes and forward your calls to landlines or VOIP terminals. They provide the capability of routing the number to different (or multiple) numbers as desired.