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I completely replaced my home phone with packet8's VoiP product. I have wireless internet where I get 384k/384k for $50/month with a steep $700+ setup fee. I pay $19.95/month for unlimited calls to any phone in the US/Alaska/Hawaii/Canada. That's the POTS (Plain Old crappy Telephone Service) network. If anyone I knew had a packet8 phone we could call back and forth unlimited for free.

Now, Packet8 uses considerably less bandwidth than a Vonage (like 8k/sec), but sounds pretty good usually. Sometimes I'm amazed at the clarity, and sometimes there's echos. Sometimes there's bad distortion like a choppy cell phone call, but not normally. Sometimes the thing stops receiving incoming calls and needs a reboot.

I dont use my home phone that much, but going all cellular seemed like we were missing the essentials, so this is a happy middle.

We dont have a few features, like the Caller ID only works for the number, no names. Vonage apparently has names both ways (in/out). It's not a big feature for me, so I'm ok with it. The voicemail light stays on if I get a message until I reboot the device (which takes about 5 seconds). Sometimes I try to dial out and get a busy signal, rebooting the device usually fixes it.

What did I do to switch? Sign up for service, at packet8.net or vonage.com. Wait for your device to come. Test it with 1 phone, once you're happy it works good enough to ditch the phone company, call & cancel the phone service. Make sure your home line is dead, disconnect the incoming line from your phone system, and plug in your packet8/vonage box in like a normal phone. Now ALL YOUR HOME PHONES WORK using VoiP!

How much money did I save? Well I was paying $120/month average. Barely using long distance, but I did have DSL which was $40 for just the line and I paid another isp $20/month. So I went from $80/month with limited long distance to $19.95/month with no surprises and no stupid Spanish-American war leftover taxes.

Screw you Qwest! Screw you Sprint! Screw you MCI! You ripped me off one time to many, and your customer service SUCKED! :P

Here is a comparison of some VoiP features. He's wrong on some things, and ignore the VoicePulse entry, they're only available in like 3 states, unless you live in one of those states.

Also, read the VoiP forums at dslreports.com for good info on VoiP.

This is a really bad idea. Most students have cellular phones these days

So what happens when cell phones start coming with a flavor of 802.11 and SIP built in? Oh, then you can roam onto your residential VoIP service (like Vonage or packet8.net without *any* per minute fees. Same thing on the campus LAN. Or Starbucks. Or McDonalds (free minutes with the purchase of a happy meal).

'Tis only a matter of time before we won't need PSTN anymore. This is the first step to that.

Have your folks try out Vonage or Packet8. They can sign up for a number in your area code, and they can call you over it for just whatever they want to pay per month. (Packet8 might be better, since they're a bit cheaper and some of Vonage's features - like E911 service - wouldn't be all that useful in the UK. Packet8 is about $20/mo, and Vonage starts at $25.99/mo.) If you really wanted to, you both could sign up for Packet8 and get videophone service. :-)

There's your videophone right there. Of course I've been too chicken to try it out (30 day free trial), but I've ordered the audio only option. If it's any good, bye bye baby bell.

Packet 8: $19.95/mo with unlimited US calling or $5.95/mo with 8cents/min

Voice Pulse : $34.99/mo unlimited, $7.99/mo with 4cents/min

Vonage : $39.99/mo unlimited, $29.99/mo with 500 long distance minutes.

The only restriction with the first two of these services right now is the inability to call 911, but they are working on it. Vonage already has the ability to call 911 and it won't be long before the others start offering it too.

Packet8 has a low priced plan(5.95). Don't know if it would work fo rthat though. I remember for Vonage there was talk of a special command for TiVo taht would make it work (slowed down the speed I think).

Check out 8x8's videophone. I saw a demo of this at their Santa Clara, CA office -- it's really cool. I have their VoIP service -- these guys are just really cool. Check it out.

I just replaced my home phone with a voip phone from packet8.net. I also considered vonage.com
Am I to understand then, that currently law enforcement could _not_ get a wiretap order to listen in on my calls? Being a privacy advocate I like this very much, maybe a temporary solution for criminals everywhere. FYI vonage uses cisco ATA's but packet8 has a proprietary solution. I hope that when people listening in on voip calls becomes more common place they upgrade to an all encrypted system.
Then all we'd need to do is get more people using PGP/GPG for email and all the spy power in the world isn't gonna help big brother. boo hoo.

For VoIP that lets you receive calls, check out Vonage or Packet8. Both of these are based on appliances, not computers, but at least they don't require you to run Windows. I'm not paid to pimp these services and I haven't tried them, so I don't know if they suck or not.