Communications
Broadvoice
Cheap unlimited internet phone service
This phone over the internet works wonderfully and cheaply if you have a high speed internet connection. You go to the Broadvoice website and subscribe. You select a new phone number (out of the numbers they list as available) in almost any area code you prefer (you can get your own number transferred but that's supposed to take a month)...then you wait a few days till they send you a little box. You also need to buy a router ($40-$50)... follow the simple installation noted on their website, then plug any phone (wired or wireless) into the phone box. You get a dial tone and voila, call anywhere in the US, as long as you like, for $20 a month. Just amazing.
I have been using this phone about 10-15 times a day and audibility seems fine; not one person has remarked about any difference in sound quality. I have experienced no outages, but I guess they are certainly possible. If I am online I can make and receive calls with no interruption of internet service. And the phone works with your PC shut down as well.
Also when you travel, you can take this little 4"x4" box with you -- your new number goes where the box goes! -- and if you can connect to a hi-speed internet line anywhere, and then plug a phone into it, you make and receive calls at the same number. Broadvoice even offers a mobile phone, called the Wisip, that taps into WiFi hot spots to make calls.
The initial set up charge is around $70 for box and start-up; thereafter flat $20 month, although a cheaper and more restricted program is available. That is still a third less than Vonage - the leader in net phone-to-phone services -- who just dropped their price to $30/month. Broadvoice advises keeping your original phone service until you're comfortable with the net phone (which has a very few limitations such as no 911 calling, but a lot of nice freebies such as call forwarding, etc).
-- Vincent Crisci
Voxilla is a good site that compares various internet phone services.
