Pros & Cons of Digital Phone Service

Using a digital phone service can give you the opportunity to save money by signing up for a package that includes the Internet service and possibly cable television service. Signing up for these services together will also make bill-paying easier, as all three can be combined into one bill.

Using digital phone service can give you access to your home phone wherever you go. Digital phone services allow you to control the settings over the Internet through a web page. This can allow you to retrieve voicemails left for you over the Internet if you are away from home. It can also allow you to change your settings, such as call forwarding from your account web page.

If you have digital phone service, you can use your computer as your own speaker phone. You will need a microphone to speak into, but then you can place calls using your digital phone service from your home computer, or even from a laptop computer. Your computer can even use wireless Internet when you are on the road to make phone calls.

One of the disadvantages with digital phone service is that it relies on electricity and cable service. If you lose either of these, you will not be able to use your digital phone service until both are working again. Traditional phone landlines can still be used when the electricity or Internet is not working.

When using digital phone service, sometimes phone conversations can seem a bit "jumpy". This is because your voice is converted into data-stream packets that are sent over the Internet to the transmitter, and your phone receives these signals in the same manner. Delays in the conversation can occur when these packets arrive in the wrong order and the digital phone must reassemble them in the proper order before playing them.