8×8 has already established itself of leading provider of VoIP services to businesses ranging from home offices to bigger companies. But the company has been working on making its services available when you’re not in the office. Rather than burning through minutes on your calling plan, you can use your 8×8 VoIP number to make calls over 3G on an iPhone. You have access to the features that come with standard 8×8 service, such as making 3-way calls, transferring calls and checking voicemail, as well as making calls from your iPhone contact list.

8×8 offers its smartphone service for $4.99 per month for existing Virtual Office customers and for free for existing Virtual Office Pro customers. It does require downloading the 8×8 app from the iPhone App Store. 8×8 also offers a very wide variety of other VoIP plans, depending on your business or home’s needs.

One of the problems with switching to a VoIP provider is that you’ll most likely need to give up your current phone number — even if it’s a landline that you’ve had for years. But if you choose VoicePulse as your provider, you may be able to keep your existing number. It can depend on whether your area code is already in VoicePulse’s coverage area, but you can easily check on the company’s website. VoicePulse also offersyou the option to pick a new phone number, including the area code, based on state choices.

VoicePulse offers a variety of plans, ranging from home plans through call centers. Plans start at $14.99 — for that price you receive free local calls as well as 200 long distance minutes. By going up to $24.99 a month, you can unlimited long distance, as well. However, international minutes are subject to additional fees.

With PatLive, you have the opportunity to save money on faxing. Not only can you eliminate the price of actually having a fax machine and keeping it supplied with paper and toner, but also the cost of maintaining multiple fax lines. If you need to have local fax numbers for your different offices or areas of coverage, PatLive can set up your virtual fax system to receive and send from multiple numbers. PatLive offers customers a free local or toll-free number when you set up an account, and will add multiple numbers for $5 each. If you buy three additional numbers, you’ll get the fourth free.

PatLive’s virtual fax system is easy to use online and can be set up to route faxes too and from your email. You won’t run the risk of missing a fax just because you aren’t in the office — as long as you have your laptop with you, you’ll always receive your faxes.

One of the difficulties of relying on VoIP services is that you can wind up tied to your internet connection. AudioCodes, in addition to the variety of other VoIP services it offers, has a mobile VoIP solution. It offers a client management system, along with a variety of mobile clients that you can use with whatever smartphones and mobile operating systems your team is already using. AudioCodes also offers HD VoIP-enabled phones for use in your office. HD VoIP options are particularly important if you’re relying on your VoIP provider for business calls. The higher quality is easy to discern.

AudioCodes offers a full range of virtual telephone services, including virtual fax lines that you can connect to your existing analog fax machines. The company is a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner and has worked with a variety of enterprise-level clients. The company has a solution for just about every problem with traditional phones.

Traditional phone lines simply aren’t safe in the event of a disaster. After Hurricane Katrina, many businesses closed simply because they lost contact with their customers. In creating a virtual phone system, VoiceNation has made disaster recovery significantly easier for both individuals and businesses. Rather than relying on phone lines for communication, VoiceNation is distributed, which will keep your lines of communication open no matter where disaster strikes. Furthermore, you don’t have to have immediate online access to check your phone lines — VoiceNation will transfer calls automatically to any phone line you prefer.

VoiceNation offers a variety of telephone services for small businesses, including virtual fax lines, an adaptable virtual PBX and an answering service. Plans start at $9.95 per month, with 100 minutes. You can add minutes and services, depending on what you need.

With MyFax, you can send and receive faxes from your email. Managing your faxes is as simple as attaching a document — and, if you have multiple email addresses, MyFax will let use up to five different email addresses with your faxes. You can also use MyFax’s website to send faxes, manage contacts and even add cover pages, as well as use Microsoft Office’s faxing tools.

MyFax offers plans priced between $10 and $40 per month, depending on how many pages you send and receive. Each plan includes a local or toll free fax number in either the U.S. or Canada, so that you can make sure that your number is easy for your contacts to use. The company also provides 24/7 customer support and will walk you through the set up process to ensure that you’re able to fax with no problem.

Most small businesses aren’t in a position to hire a receptionist to handle directing calls. At best, everyone just tries to grab their own phone if it rings. At worst, most calls go to voicemail and you return them as you’re able to. My1voice offers a way to handle calls like big businesses do, without the added expense of a receptionist. Instead, the service offers a virtual receptionist, in addition to a number of online features. The virtual receptionist is able to play greetings, connect phone calls and record voicemails. It can even play different informational messages, allowing you to skip phone calls requesting basic information (like your business hours) entirely.

With my1voice, every plan offers all of the features the service provides. Choosing a plan is based on the number of minutes you’ll use each month, with options ranging from 150 minutes to 2,000. You can also try the service free for 30 days.

On the surface, Jajah and Skype don’t look all that different: both offer free calling between account holders and relatively inexpensive calls to outside numbers. But when you dig a little deeper, you’ll find that Jajah serves very different purposes. In addition to letting you place phone calls from your computer, Jajah lets you make calls from your existing landline or mobile. The service focuses on providing international phone services to a very long list of countries, starting with Afghanistan and ending with Zimbabwe.

With Jajah, the cost of calls depends on what country you’re calling and, in some countries, whether you’re calling to or from a landline. You can check the exhaustive list of countries Jajah serves on the company’s website. Many countries have rates of less than 5 cents per minute — Italy’s is 3.5 cents, as is China’s. For certain countries, Jajah even offers a comparison to other companies’ rates for international calls. Calling China, for instance, costs closer to 18 cents per minute with many other providers.

RingCentral offers a complete set of virtual phone services for both large companies and small businesses, more than matching what a traditional telephone company can provide. The standout feature is the ability to create for toll free numbers for your company. You have the option of choosing a regular toll free number (with an 866 or 877 area code) or an 800 number. You can also create a dedicated toll free number that accepts faxes.

You can set up a virtual PBX for your business through RingCentral, as well as getting a dedicated line if you don’t need more than one phone number. RingCentral also offers a variety of call management features: if you’re not always able to pick up the phone, you can have an auto-receptionist do it for you, as well as have phone calls routed directly to voicemail, another extension or another phone number based on what time it is.

On Thursday, Skype 4.2 Beta for Windows was released. While overall, the new version focuses on fixing bugs and improving call quality, there are some new features that will make downloading the new version worthwhile. These features are still in beta, but they seem stable.

The ability to transfer calls is one of the coolest additions to the new version: if you’re talking to someone over Skype, you can now transfer calls to one of your Skype contacts. That sort of transfer is free. If you want to transfer a call to a landline or mobile, the call will be charged at Skype’s normal rates. If you’re using Skype for business phone calls, this feature will be especially useful.