VoIP is a popular way to cut costs for those that have to make a lot of phone calls. Especially for businesses with international clients, VoIP is an advantageous, if not essential tool for the office. Even for personal use, travelers and those with family overseas are starting to rely more on VoIP software than other methods of calling. But is your information secure? This is why it is recommend that you use a VoIP VPN for all VoIP calls.

Business

Convenience is something that needs to be discussed. VoIP can be the root of many technical errors due to the configuration of port settings. Virtual private networks solve this problem with features like port forwarding or other port configuration settings that can automatically bypass tech issues related to firewalls.

As far as security goes, you can never be to careful with your clients information. For big businesses, competitors and other malicious individuals are not above spying or eavesdropping. Even if these 'hackers' or other cyber criminals are not specifically related to your business, having your or your clients information intercepted and misused can be detrimental if not devastating to you business's reputation.

From a cost standpoint, the level of security provided by the VPN goes a lot further than what it actually costs. A typical VPN service provider will charge about ten dollars a month for 128-bit SSL or even higher levels of encryption. This is the type of data protection used to hide your credit card information when you make purchases online - and it's available for a few dollars a month. This is truly cost effective data security.

Personal

As someone that travels a lot, I've slowly collected an international network of friends across Europe, Asia, The US, and South America. For the years that I worked abroad, calls home over the holidays racked up a huge long distance phone bill. Long distance calls can be expensive, but VoIP software has reduced these costs to next to nothing. In fact, if you call someone with the same software, it's completely free.

But part of traveling means that you're often in hotels, airports, and public wifi zones, where you personal information is at the highest risk. Shared networks leave you open to 'side jacking', or the hijacking of your internet session. Eavesdropping can be easily done with open source software, and you don't have to be a genius to use it. And the first step to eavesdropping is targeting a user by his or her IP address.

VoIP VPN software actually HIDES your IP address. With your IP hidden, it's impossible to be seen, even on a shared network. In addition to hiding your IP, by using a VPN service your private data is encrypted with the aforementioned PPP, IPSec, or SSL encryption. Two layers of security (VPN tunneling and encryption) means that your hidden and protected while making VoIP calls, no matter where you are in the world.