Good article written by Deb Shinder from ZDNet Asia on making VoIP service more reliable:

Almost everyone has heard by now that Voice over IP (VoIP) technology can save you money on phone calls, whether you’re a consumer, small business owner, or running an enterprise-level corporation. In fact, using VoIP can reduce your telephone costs by hundreds or even thousands of dollars per month if you make a lot of long distance calls. Why, then, do landlines still exist at all? Why isn’t everyone using VoIP?

I talked to a group of managers of small- and medium-sized businesses, and the biggest concern they expressed to us–indeed, their most common reason for not switching to VoIP–can be summed up in one word: reliability.

The phone company has a reputation for reliability. Customers are used to getting a dial tone every time they pick up the phone. They’re used to their calls going through to the correct party. And they’re used to having clear communications up until the moment one of the parties terminates the call. They aren’t willing to settle for less.

The trouble with VoIP
Many of these business people tried VoIP when it first became available. And the reason they didn’t cancel their Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) service and embrace IP telephony was because they didn’t find VoIP to be entirely trustworthy. One user reported that the service worked great–sometimes. Other times he’d pick up the phone to find there was no dial tone, and would have to reboot the VoIP box before he could make or receive a call. Another said most calls went through with no problem, but calls to certain phone numbers, especially those on corporate PBX systems, resulted in so much echo that she had to switch to the landline when talking to those people. A few reported downright weird problems, such as caller ID reporting a totally different number than from the actual originating phone. The overall consensus: VoIP has great potential but, like beta software with cool features, it’s just a little too flaky for everyday use.

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