How To Get Cheap Or Free Long Distance

• PC-to-Phone VoIP -- computer to a traditional phone line

• ATA VoIP -- a special box that lets you use your traditional phone with the internet

• IP Phone -- an "Internet Protocol Phone", which is an ATA and phone all in one

• Cell Phone VoIP -- using your mobile phone to avoid using minutes and paying long distance rates

Step 1: Option 1: PC to PC VoIP

You'll need a microphone and speakers (a lot of times they're already built into your computer), or a headset with a mic attached.

Then you and the person you want to call need to download the same VoIP software; you can use chat software like MSN messenger, AIM, Google Talk or iChat, or you can download software specifically designed for voice, like Skype or Babble.

Find out your friend's screenname, invite her to chat, and you'll be talking long distance for free -- apart from the money you're already paying for internet service.

Step 2: Option 2: PC-to-Phone VoIP

People who want to call long-distance landlines for cheap, especially international lines, often use the PC-to-PC programs I just mentioned to use PC-to-Phone VoIP.

Some companies, like Skype, charge for a virtual pre-paid phone card that is redeemable for cheap minutes. A lot of international calls are less than 3 cents a minute. It's 40 cents to call Samoa, but it's better than the 5 bucks you would have paid with traditional phone lines.

Strap on your headset, punch in the person's phone number on what's called a "softphone", and you're talking long distance.

Step 3: Option 3: ATA VoIP

To use this long distance VoIP, you plug your normal phone into a small handsize box call an "ATA box". You plug the ATA box into the internet, the internet talks to POTS (the Plain Old Telephone Service), and it dials up your friend on your phone line.

Vonage and other companies like DeltaTree, Net2Phone and 8x8 charge a monthly fee to use their service (lower than a regular phone company's) and they all include unlimited local and long distance calls – to numbers in this country and several places outside the country as well.


Bonus: Your old home phone number is no longer associated with your actual home; you fill out a form and the internet phone company ports the phone number to the ATA box.

Thus, the next time your next-door buddy who has ATA service goes on a long-distance trip, she can take her ATA device with her, plug any phone into her ATA device, plug the ATA device into the internet, and call you, just as if you were next door.

When you call her, it's the same price as a local call, because as far as your phone company is concerned, it is.

The same applies to the IP Phone, which is basically an ATA and a phone all wrapped into one, except it has some cool bonus features at the touch of a button.

Step 4: Option 4: Cell Phone VoIP

Cell Phone VoIP technology is changing all the time, but here's one way that's really caught on.

Certain phone companies allow users who have Wi-Fi on their phones to tap into an internet connection to make their phone calls. So, instead of your long-distance phone call going through all the telephone towers -- docking your minutes and paying international rates -- you can use your cell phone to go right into internet, and go directly to the person you're trying to reach.

Now you have at least four options for getting your long distance calls for cheap, and even for free. So why pay full price?