Facebook poll shows college students don't know VoIP

Posted by Joe on December 18th, 2007

While typically at the cutting edge of new technologies, many college students don't have a keen awareness of VoIP services which could be costing them hundreds of dollars per year.

We recently commissioned a Facebook poll of college students 18 to 24 years old and found the 59% of respondents had never even heard of VoIP while another 21% knew what VoIP was but did not currently use a VoIP service. These results are fairly surprising given the many benefits that VoIP services offer which may be particularly interesting to college students.

VoIP is extremely economical compared to traditional phone service. Long distance, in particular, is much cheaper with VoIP than with land line phones or even many cell phone plans. This is important for college students that may attend a college or university far from home and make many calls to their family or friends outside of their local calling area.

Additionally, VoIP is very flexible. Services such as Vonage allow subscribers to choose a service phone number in almost any area code in the United States. This is great for college students that may want to maintain a phone number in their home area code while at school or vice versa.

Because VoIP services us a broadband Internet connection rather than a standard phone jack to make calls it is the perfect solution for college dorm rooms or apartments that may have poor or inconvenient telephone wiring. Many colleges also offer free or discount broadband service for those students that live on campus, which is another cost savings benefit.

We have been championing VoIP services for several years now and strongly suggest that most households make the switch to this powerful communication tool. But, given all the unique benefits, we encourage college students, in particular, to take a closer look at VoIP.

Our in-depth comparison of VoIP providers is a great resource for college students or any one else interested in learning more about VoIP.