I had to prepare for a research project recently that would involve conducting lengthy telephone interviews with service providers around the globe. As a home-based worker with a small company, I began to get very jittery about the likely size of the phone bill I would run up—small businesses and big phone bills being like the proverbial oil and water—and so began to search for cheap phone options in the form of public VoIP.

After looking at various options, I settled on Jajah. It wasn't so much the rates that were the deciding factor; yes, they were very good, but they were comparable to other VoIP players. What I particularly liked was that I didn't need to download any software onto my already overburdened laptop. Nor did I have to invest in a VoIP phone, or worry about which one was the best buy (a big deal for me as I am a true Northerner—I worry and I watch my money, often both at the same time).

In practical terms, the Jajah service is phone-to-phone, which means that the call is initiated on the Jajah website, and the service calls both parties and connects them. There are some neat options, too, such as an easy-to-use address book for saving dialled numbers, the allocation of a local number for regularly dialled contacts to circumvent the need to use a PC for subsequent calls, and an automatic redial at a pre-determined time. There is even a conference call option (though I haven't tried that yet). The whole thing is scarily simple.

Of course, none of this matters if the call quality is poor—particularly as these are business calls. But so far, for me, call quality has been pretty good—I'd say it is on a par with my standard landline. Additionally, call quality hasn't degraded during a call, even for very long calls. And the fact that I am using my own phone has a positive impact on the overall experience. A few calls have been barely audible, but I have typically been able to remedy these by re-dialling. And on the odd occasion that I haven't then, of course, I still have my landline.

Pre-Jajah use, I was very sceptical about public VoIP for business use, and viewed my landline as far superior—a bit of 'phone snobbery' to be honest. Now, though, I am a VoIP convert, and find myself raving about it to anyone who will listen. I have some minor quibbles, for example, around the address book set-up, but as for the big downsides, I've yet to find them.

I'm not necessarily recommending VoIP for routine business use as the cost of local/national calls from traditional providers is not high enough to justify the switch. However, it is a pretty compelling commercial proposition in the context of a specific usage requirement such as a period of intense of international calling for a home-based or small business user.