Get to know more about free VoIP service features, and what else you can get with paid, business-focused alternatives like RingCentral RingEX.
The short answer: yes. There are free VoIP apps available which you can use to make and receive calls—even video calls!— over the internet.
Some of the best VoIP apps on the market for free include WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Google Duo and Hangouts, Skype, and Viber.
Of course, if you’re running a business, then the bigger question is whether a free Voice over IP app is enough to meet your communication needs. Would you be better off with a VoIP service that brings more to the table, even if it requires a little investment?
To properly answer that question, let’s start with the potential advantages of a free VoIP call service.
Even though they’re offered for no upfront charge, a free VoIP service does have some benefits—particularly over regular landlines.
Getting a free VoIP phone service is so easy, anyone can do it.
For one thing, there are so many providers to choose from. You can simply Google them or search your app store (Google Play Store or Apple’s App Store) on your mobile app. From there, just download the app and register.
In most cases, you only need a valid email address (or a Facebook or Twitter account) to create an account. After registration and some general verification and validation steps, you’re ready to make free VoIP calls!
Aside from letting you make VoIP calls, most free VoIP phone services have messaging options, too. You can even create group chats with multiple users. As a bonus, you can also use these applications to share links, photos, videos, and files to other people either individually or in those group chats.
Sometimes, a free VoIP telephone service also lets you make video calls. Facebook Messenger, Skype, and most other free VoIP providers let you use your computer or mobile device’s camera, speaker, and mic to make video calls over the internet. That’s definitely something that you can’t do with regular landlines.
If you need to host VoIP calls for multiple parties, there’s free VoIP software that lets you do that, too.
Just create a group and start a call from there. Voila! You’ve just started a conference call. You could even level it up by doing a video conference call instead of a regular group audio VoIP call. It’s super convenient for people who can’t be in the same room, but need to be on the same page.
Even with these advantages, there are still some things free VoIP apps aren’t able to do. And for businesses, these limitations can be pretty significant. It means that while these apps may be realistic substitutes for regular landline phones, and a free VoIP phone service for home use may work okay, they’re not viable choices for businesses.
For example, here are some of the biggest limitations of most free solutions:
One of the main limitations of these free VoIP apps is that they only work when the person calling and the person being called are both on the same app. For example, people on Viber can’t call WhatsApp users and vice versa (unless they have both apps downloaded).
That’s fine if all you want is a free VoIP home phone alternative—you can always tell friends and family members which apps they can connect with you on. It’s pretty limiting, though, if you’re a business that needs to call prospects or customers who aren’t using the same apps as you.
Most of these services are only able to make calls within the application, which means you can’t call phone numbers directly. Of course, Viber and Skype do have that function—but you’d need to buy call minutes to use them, which makes the service paid and not free.
Another big disadvantage of free VoIP apps is that you can’t really connect a phone number to the VoIP phone service. Remember how the app can’t call landlines?
Well there’s also no way to make calls from landlines to the free VoIP—unless you’re willing to pay, of course. Skype can assign you a temporary telephone number from different countries but, again, it’s an extra charge that negates the “free” aspect of the service.
All VoIP services, paid or not, need an internet connection to work. But the quality of the calls for free VoIP apps is more easily affected by the quality of internet connection used—by both the person calling and the person being called.
With paid versions, specifically the ones catering to businesses, the service requires less internet bandwidth to get a quality call. This is because it uses high-quality codecs to compress your voice.
Think of it like putting your documents into a zip file so it’s easier to send them through email. The codec converts your voice into a smaller file size so it can travel faster over the internet.
Before signing you on as a customer, VoIP providers for business usually test the speed and quality of your company’s internet connection to see if it can handle VoIP calls. They also use QoS (Quality of Service) routers that prioritize internet-based phone calls over other internet traffic. Even the best free VoIP phone service providers can’t claim the same.
The thing with VoIP is that you can attach a phone number to the service, but it doesn’t have to reflect your actual area code. That is to say: you can use a number that makes you seem like you’re from another state or even another country without actually being there.
That’s why federal law requires business VoIP providers to register the address of the VoIP customer. This is so that first responders know where to send help during emergencies. Since free VoIP programs only work within the app’s network of users and have no business phone numbers, it won’t have the ability to call 911 during emergencies. That’s a pretty serious issue.
That depends on what you plan to use VoIP for. If you only need an internet phone service that gives you free VoIP calls to family and friends (a free VoIP landline alternative, if you will), then a free VoIP service is likely more than enough to help you keep connected.
If, however, you need a business phone system that can replace your traditional landline-based setup, then free VoIP services will typically not be adequate.
Instead, you should look into getting an advanced VoIP-based business phone system with advanced call management features, which makes sure that your business doesn’t miss any calls.
For example, this could include an auto-attendant that answers all your incoming calls and a PBX component that routes calls to the right department or extension. This would be on top of the VoIP service that allows your team to make and receive calls from anywhere, as long as you have an internet connection.
If you’ve decided that simple free VoIP calling isn’t enough for your business, you need to know how to pick the right cloud-based phone system instead. The best VoIP service for your business should be judged based on a few qualities:
If your business chooses RingCentral RingEX instead of a free VoIP phone service, you get a whole lot of bang for your buck. Rather than just a simple way to call friends and family who have the same VoIP app, you get a full-featured communications solution to meet all your business’s needs.
That starts with a VoIP phone number. Each RingEX user gets a dedicated business phone number as part of the package. That solves the inter-connectivity issue of free VoIP services right off the bat. Your team members can call and receive calls from users of other VoIP services, as well as any customers or prospects who still use landlines.
What’s more, on top of free VoIP phone numbers, you also get unlimited calling in the USA and Canada. So, while the service itself has a monthly subscription charge, domestic calls are free of any additional charges.
It’s not just VoIP calling that you get with RingEX, either. It’s a truly unified communications solution that lets you bring your calling, video calling, messaging, and more onto one easy-to-use platform.
Interested in learning more about what a VoIP-based unified communications solution can do for your business? Why not try RingCentral for free? For more information, you can check plans and pricing below.
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