If you have never heard of VoIP, get ready to change the way you think about long-distance phone calls. VoIP, or Voice over Internet Protocol, is a method for taking analog audio signals, like the kind you hear when you talk on the phone, and turning them into digital data that can be transmitted over the Internet.

How is this useful? VoIP can turn a standard Internet connection into a way to place phone calls for the lowest rates. The practical upshot of this is that by using the Hello! VoIP calling box (MTA) to make Internet phone calls, you are bypassing the phone company (and its charges) entirely.