A year ago, experts thought that maybe VoIP International phone service is a hyped up technology. But not today! Companies such as Vonage, eBay (Skype), and iBasis (Pingo) have used the technology to their advantage to take the lead in the VoIP market. Besides, companies such as Cisco, Linksys, Earthlink and even Microsoft are trying to take advantage of this technology and grab a piece of share in this intriguing market. But that's not all. Voice-over-IP has grabbed a remarkable portion of the communications market.

One of the issues that every new technology has to address is the high switching costs for consumers. In other words, there are many great new technologies out there. But, unless it makes sense, financially, for consumers to switch to those new technologies, they will simply not switch. The key for innovators is to keep the switching costs as low as possible. Companies such as Vonage and Skype have done just that. These companies make the switching process convenient and easy, as long as someone has high-speed internet access. They also offer many extra features over the standard phone service for a much lower price. In that sense, the customers have nothing to lose and very much to gain. Even easier, companies such as Pingo allow people to take advantage of the same low VoIP long distance phone call rates by dialing a local access number from their land or even their mobile phone.

According to Jupiter research, companies have started to rapidly switch to Voice-over-IP services. There are several reason behind this. For starters, as mentioned before, the switching costs are reasonably low. In addition, the best VoIP International phone service networks are more efficient and companies manage to save a considerable amount of money by switching from circuit-switched connections to VoIP.

One of the services that Voice-over-IP has had a major impact on is the calling card service. Some calling card service providers have managed to use the best VoIP International phone service to cut their costs and pass those savings to their customers. For example, iBasis, which is the premiere international phone card service provider, offers its customers prices that are much lower than those of Verizon. There are many companies that have adopted similar strategy to grab market share in the communications market. Even though, these companies are cutting their costs, the real winners are consumers, saving as high as 50% on their monthly phone bills.

Many telcos have struggled to deal with the new breed of communication companies. Companies such as Skype and Vonage have taken a great deal of market share from traditional landline services companies. Most companies, which decided to compete head to head with this new breed, have already gone out of business or about to. However, a few of these companies have decided to either adopt the technology or join VoIP companies in form of alliances or partnerships.

The VoIP International phone service market is very promising, and many new players are set to join the competition in this market. Of course, early adopters hold an edge over the newcomers. However, it is too early to project who'll take a commanding lead in this rather young market as it is expanding fast. But one thing is clear: VoIP has changed the dynamics of the communications market forever.