If you want a cheap way to communicate with people without having to write, one of the best things you can do is to look into voip phones.  Whether you are traveling, or have a business, voip is a fast, cheap and efficient way to contact those who you need to get a hold of. 

If you are considering voip, it is important to keep in mind that household VoIP hardware uses broadband modems and other equipment powered by household electricity, which may be subject to outages dictating the use of an uninterruptible power supply or generator to ensure availability during power outages. Early adopters of VoIP may be users of other phone equipment, such as PBX and cordless phone bases that rely on power not provided by the telephone company.

With local power still available, the broadband carrier itself may experience outages as well. While the PSTN has been matured over decades and is typically extremely reliable, most broadband networks are less than 10 years old, and even the best are still subject to intermittent outages.

Also, consumer network technologies such as cable and DSL often are not subject to the same restoration service levels as the PSTN or business technologies such as T-1 connection. 

Amateur radio has adopted VoIP by linking repeaters and users with Echolink, IRLP, D-STAR and EQSO. Echolink and IRLP are programs/systems based upon the Speak Freely VoIP open source software.

Echolink allows users to connect to repeaters via their computer rather than by using a radio. By using VoIP Amateur Radio operators are able to create large repeater networks with repeaters all over the world where operators can access the system with actual ham radios. 

Ham Radio operators using radios are able to tune to repeaters with VoIP capabilities and use DTMF buttons to command the repeater to connect to various other repeaters, thus allowing them to talk to people all around the world, even with line of sight VHF radios. One thing to keep in mind with voip is the attempt at emergency contacts. 

Emergency calls, therefore, cannot easily be routed to a nearby call center, and are impossible on some VoIP systems. Sometimes, VoIP systems may route emergency calls to a non-emergency phone line at the intended department.  In the event that the caller is unable to give an address, emergency services may be unable to locate them in any other way.

Many VoIP carriers are already implementing a technical work-around. When you dial the emergency number for your country, they will route it to the appropriate local system. They also maintain their own emergency call center that will take non-routable emergency calls and then will manually route your call once learning your physical location. 

The Plain Old Telephone System and mobile phone networks share a common global standard which allocates and identifies any specific telephone line, but there is no largely adopted similar standard for VoIP networks. There are some that allocate an E.164 number which can be used for VoIP as well as external calls and incoming ones as well. 

Keep in mind that there are some broadband connections that may have less than desirable quality. IP packets can be lost or delayed at any point in the network between VoIP users, but there will be a momentary drop-out of voice. This is noticeable in highly congested networks or where there are long distances.