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The 911 argument is and will come every time that VoIP is mentioned mostly due to the huge effort that went into building the system by alot of players. Getting the physical addresses changed and databased was big and kudos to those involved. This 911 effort is now built out and everyone is mapped so now all voice services can take advantage. Do not forget that every cell phone and telephone in the USA is required by federal law to be usable to call 911 out of the box and that no service activation or account holder is required. Disclaimer: I use Vonage, turned off Bell South, and am a Geek.

You sound a lot like a consumer (:-), so check out things like Net2Phone and Dialpad. But also check out Free World Dialup. Vonage is trying to replace your whole phone line, including local and inbound calls, rather than just skimming your outgoing long distance calls.

Consumer-oriented services typically want your credit card to set up an account, though there are other models. Business-oriented services usually have more interesting options for billing, accounting, grouping users together, incoming calls, etc. Hardware ranges from single-line frobs to 4-line PC boards to 24-line T1s to PBXs, etc. Check out www.openh323.org if you're interested.

Please don't call them 'proprietary'. Almost all software and services available use open protocols, even MS Netmeeting. Most of the time, reference implementations are available open-source. They won't help you use unsupported clients, but that doesn't mean it's 'proprietary'.

software that lets you call from the internet to an actual phone... Does anyone know software like this?

Sure. Most protocols have allowances for a link to the pots network. They're usually called 'gateways'. The reason you don't see many voip-to-pots services offerred is that you end up having to pay for the land line that you use to connect to the pots network anyways, which negates most savings of voip. Vonage costs more than a land line; and you have to have a broadband internet connection *on top* of that. It doesn't make sense unless you do *a lot* of long distance calling and voice quality isn't really an issue for those calls.

What would need to happen to get software like this to work?

It works now. What would need to happen to get this to become economical? An act of God. Or Congress. Or, possibly, if the Baby Bells lost their minds and decided that VoIP was the way to go. Of course they won't do that until a strong Palladium-type system is in place to *guarantee* that their encrypted protocols can't be cracked to allow interoperability with competitors' products.

ah, but you don't need your local company to provide dsl (well, you might depending on your area) all you need is their wires.. but check with other ISP's in the area. For instance, in quite a bit of NY state, Logical Net provides DSL service, and they simply use verizon's (or your local bell's) wiring (for a meager fee) and boom, you have lovely DSL, without even talking to your all powerful bellco Then, there's Roadrunner, and other cable modems, as you all know, but if you can't get ANY other high speed, there's always sattelite. (and if you can't get that, you should probally move somewhere that has power.

<Soapbox>

Any way about it, I have vonage, and it's a Wonderful thing.. it's cheaper than any other phone company.. (oops, did I say that?) umm.. base station land line telecommunications service, (IP or otherwise) you can hook up regular phones, answering machines, fax machines, anything with a phone jack! (non-vonage sponsored faq, and cheap plug for referrals) Not to mention you can keep your regular phone number, equipment, etc.. (FYI, if you use a refferal, you get an extra month free, instead of going directly to vonage :) Where else can you get a true to life 800 number for a couple extra bux a month?

</Soapbox>

ok.. I'm done now..

(yeah, I know, you already knew most of that anwyays...)

These should help you;

Vonage
Net2Phone
Quicknet

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. :-)

Would that not be Vonage?

If you're not worried about being able to call regular numbers, use a pure VOIP solution like the one in the article above. Vonage is a VOIP product that can call out to (and receive calls from) the regular phone system.

The 911 argument is and will come every time that VoIP is mentioned mostly due to the huge effort that went into building the system by alot of players. Getting the physical addresses changed and databased was big and kudos to those involved. This 911 effort is now built out and everyone is mapped so now all voice services can take advantage. Do not forget that every cell phone and telephone in the USA is required by federal law to be usable to call 911 out of the box and that no service activation or account holder is required.

Disclaimer: I use Vonage, turned off Bell South, and am a Geek.

Are you willing to give up reliability? Are you willing to give up 911. What?

My vonage line rings to a local emergency dispatcher when I dial 911 on my vonage phone. If that is out (which it hasn't in the 6 weeks I've had it), then I have a cellphone. If that's out, I have neighbors.

I'm also a very happy Vonage customer, and will provide the obligitory Vonage referral link. :)

No, you need to go here (obligitory Vonage referral link) :)

But unfortunately, Vonage makes little fuss about the fact that if your broadband provider goes down you're screwed. How about those 911 calls?

What? Have you seen this? Maybe that falls into your definition of "little fuss" but it seems to me that they clearly spell it out.

For very close to the same prices, I can get MCI's The Neighborhood plan with DSL here.

I can subscribe to MCI's Neighborhood, too. But it's actually *more* expensive than getting local from BellSouth (my local telco) and LD from MCI. Bundling doesn't save anything. And if I use BellSouth's bundle, it's even MORE expensive.

Yeah, I'm paying extra taxes, which sucks, but they are required by law to give me service. There's a maximum amount of downtime they're allowed, and I can call 911. I use The Neighborhood without DSL now, and even if the power goes out, I can still make calls.

That's great for you, but let's not confuse the issue here. Vonage (et al) should be an option for those willing to accept the risks. I currently understand that if my cable modem (and the cable infrastructure) loses power, I'm not going to be able to make phone calls in an emergency. That's a risk that I'm willing to take in order to save $35/mo, every month. I'm willing, for the time that I have an emergency, to walk over to my neighbor's house and say, "Don, do you mind if I use your phone? Mine's out." If you're not willing to take that risk, ok. I'm not trying to regulate your risk aversion. But I am willing to take such a risk and I don't think that anyone should be enforcing my use of an expensive service that provides features that I don't personally feel I need.

So, VoIP people, get back to me when you're willing to submit to some regulations for the quality of service.

What bothers me about this debate are those who want to enforce features on me (and others) who are willing to live without some of those features for a lower price. That to me is no different than me forcing you to use VoIP even though you're willing to pay more for features that you demand.

911 Dialing and Vonage Service DO NOT function during an electrical power or broadband provider outage.

Vonage offers residential service cheap. I've had them for about 6 months, and am so far extremely happy with their service.

For $25/month, I get 500 minutes to anywhere in the US or Canada, and unlimited local. Anything over that is 3.9 cents/minute.

Or for $40, you can get unlimited.

Both plans include voicemail, caller id, call forwarding. You can also get a second # for $5 that will forward to your number. It's useful if you have out of state family that calls you frequently, and you want to make it a local call for them.

I don't work for Vonage, or have any stake in them, I'm just an extremely happy customer of theirs.

I pay $46 for my cable tv and cable modem, and $25 for the phone service. The $71 still comes out cheaper than my POTS was, and I get cable TV and cable modem.

You go here.

Isn't really needed by most people. Most people only use the net for email and some shopping. Paying $40 - $50 a month so your email gets sent a lot faster isn't very cost effective. Course us geeks like it, but we're the minority.

I disagree. Using Vonage and a cable modem I get a better deal on phone service then anybody I know. Sometime in the future everyone will get to the point where companies will find it worthwhile to roll out similar things -- which use broadband and make the 'Net just another utility -- like electricity. (Yes I saw those IBM ads a few years ago).

But this isn't even discussing the benefit of being able to have multiple people on the net at the same time -- or even what you save over a dedicated phone line. If you want several people online at the same time, or want service without tying up your phone line, you're either looking at upwards of $30 a month for each extra phone line and upwards of $20 per ISP. (No, AOL doesn't let you sign on under two screen names at the same time). So, yeh, for some of us it is worth it.

They claim to have the right to eavesdrop and wiretap the communication.- They make you agree that the service can be terminated without prior notice if they believe that you did not adhere to their ideas of proper conduct. They claim even to have the right to charge a cancellation fee and they say they will give the material to the authorities if they believe it may be apropriate.

See 1.3 of the Vonage - Terms of service

At least in Germany, i think even in the whole of Europe, these terms would be immoral and thus void from the beginning. If they would do what they claim to do they would be subject to criminal investigation because of violation of elemantary civil rights like privacy of communication.

Shaking the head and frowning

The Terminator

Their 911 dialing isn't the same as from a normal phone line, as stated here

"Your Call Will Go To A General Access Line at the Public Safety Answering Point (PSAP). This is different from the 911 Emergency Response Center where traditional 911 calls go.

This means your call goes to a different phone number than traditional 911 calls. Also, you will need to state the nature of your emergency promptly and clearly, including your location and telephone number, as PSAP personnel will NOT have this information at hand."

I'm a satisfied Vonage customer, and I have to say that I really enjoy having a "phone bill" that is completely straight forward. I'm on the $25.99/month plan, and our monthly bill contains less than $1 in taxes. LESS THAN A FREAKING DOLLAR. How cool is that?

If the government starts getting their fingers in this business that is doing just fine competitively, you can bet that I'll start to see loads of fees and taxes being added onto my bill, turning my $27.00 monthly bill into something more like $40.00. And for what benefits? None.

Go Vonage.

Shameless refer-a-friend link to Vonage

I used to have issues with my Vonage service until I got a decent ISP, packet loss really messes up VoIP.

You can also adjust your connection, if you have bandwidth issues.

Personally, I highly recomend this service to anyone that burns a lot of long distance minutes.

Actually, with broadband, Voice over IP sounds quite decent. Equally on par, and probably better than, cellular phone service. And this is usually with services that don't do much compression to the audio. Squeeze the bitrate down, and it sounds damn fine. Services such as Vonage don't exist due to crappy quality.

Video is another issue, but can still be quite good when done correctly. Phone companies are even offering television service via a set-top box and DSL lines. A couple of channels get streamed down to the box, and when you change to one that isn't being currently streamed to you, the server at the central office switches what it is sending.

I agree, obviously, that any of this done on a dial up link would be rediculous. Remember however, that you don't have to be an AOL subscriber to use their IM service. Hell, they even own ICQ which is the service with the most subscribers as any.

If you really want to save some money on your phone bills and you make a lot of long distance calls, I highly recommend looking at Vonage.

Why would you pay $129.00 for a phone that can only call other SIP phones from when you can go to Vonage and signup, they send you an ATA186 that you plug into your router and ANY phone and you can call anybody you want. I do recommend using a newer phone, old junkers seem to have problems.

I have had a Vonage account for over a year and the only time I had problems was when I had Adelphia as a provider.

Latency is fine the only thing that I have seen affect QOS is bad upload speeds.

Highly recommended, and no I don't get kick backs.

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.

Check this out then.

Vonage Very Nifty

SIP/VOIP is something I have researched a lot about. Basically, this guy set up a server has a just enough bandwidth to do the directory lookup and is selling the phones. Yippie. Thats it. No VoiceMail or advanced Unified Messaging services. He doesn't even have a way to get back to POTS. Here is how it should be done. Like Vonage but make it free from device to device over SIP, then minimal cost back to POTS. Then we want advanced services like TellMe. Oh and use the Cisco ATA 186. Like Vonage, because the thing supports 2 lines and ANY phone.

Vonage has a service where they give you a router to plug a regular phone into. The router is then plugged into your cablemodem/dsl/whatever and voila, you have a VoIP SIP based phone. They also provide you with a phone number (in just about any area code) and give you great rates on long distance. No need for a Pingtel or SIPhone.

You can pick up SIP phones, and even nice H323 videoconferencing hardware cheap these days from Taiwanese OEMs. Companies like vonage.com or pilmo.nl will even hook them up to the plain old telephone system for you.

The main problem is that each company that sells these things to end users uses it's own LDAP directory. So you can call other people who use the same brand easily by tapping a 'phone number' that's the same regardless of their everchanging IP number, but don't expect to call your buddy who's using netmeeting so easily. Also, if you place a call from one VOIP telco to another, chances are it will travel some distance over PSTN and will be billed in stead of free, despite the fact it could have been an end-to-end-over-IP connection which is usually free of charge.

Of course SIP can work over the real dns just beautifully (using SRV records), but do these phones support entering alphanumeric user/hostnames? And will hotmail support SIP? (Answer, yes it will, and it will tie in with MSN video/voiceconferencing and Microsoft SIP phones...)

Here's why this might be reasonably successful:

1. What they are selling is a Directory Service + Grandstream phones which support the SIP protocol -- which is *the* standard for VoIP signalling -- oh, which is also supported by the Cisco ATA 186, Cisco 7960, MS IM, X-Lite, Asterisk, etc. -- i.e. basically anyone playing in the VoIP space who doesn't have a legacy H323 or proprietary protocol already deployed.
2. They've already got an interconnect agreement with FWD which has circa 40,000 users signed up. (albeit not fee paying)
3. The phones aren't locked to being used for this particular service -- nothing to stop you taking the phones and pointing them at FWD/your own Gatekeeper etc. (Refer: Michael Roberton's comments)

They've also had the smarts to set their SIP phone numbers as a "US area code" (don't know if they've actually been allocated it, who knows) -- no doubt PSTN access is in their plans at some stage like Vonage.

Doomed? I doubt it. While nothing here is revolutionary, the genius is in offering the total package (phone + directory service) for a one-off fee that even your grandmother could figure out how to use. All they need to add is PSTN access. If you'd like to learn some more about VoIP, I'd suggest FWD is a nice easy learning curve.

If you're still using the phone line, I'd suggest really sticking it to them and going with Vonage.

Ok, so there's power over ethernet, and broadband over power, and voice over IP. Convergence?

VOIP is a term that's now "buzzword compliant". However...

Try vonage. For $40/mo, you turn ANY broadband connection with DHCP and 30 Kbps or higher connection into a long distance carrier with unlimited long distance.

Audio quality is good, latency is equivalent to a cell phone. You can use an ordinary $5 telephone, plus you get voicemail, call waiting, call forwarding, and a zillion other features thru a box about the size of a paperback book.

Contact me if you are interested, I can get 1 month of service to you for free.

-- PhoneBoy

1. ???
2. ???
3. Profit!

Vonage does something like this, except you only need magic box #2 (known as a Cisco ATA 186 (that'd be Analog Telephone Adaptor)). They deliver phone service over IP, incoming calls are routed from their switch to your broadband connection. I'm looking at getting something like this for myself, I just looked and also found netinternational and VoicePulse, who offer similar services, I'm sure there are others...

I've been thinking about cutting off my land line. But, I'm also considering signing up for DirecTV (or at least I'd like to leave that option open). Doesn't DirecTV require a land line for its initial setup or otherwise? Or, maybe that's not correct?

Supposing that a land line is required for DirectTV, could I use a broadband-based phone service (like Vonage) for that? Then again, even if that did work, Vonage is still no cheaper than my land line (both are around $25).

The Vonage web site says its service does not work with a satellite connection to the internet.

Vonage Requirements

I know it's no good for the poster of this story, but for those with cable or DSL, check out Vonage. And tell them you were referred by user timandjeni - vonage@timandjeni.com ;^)

Not to mention there's always VoIP. I've been a vonage subscriber for a month now and the sound quality is excellent. Voicemail is a little flakey, but I prefer answering machines anyway.

A coworker of mine has been completely fed up with the service, price, and general ill will that Verizon has shown him in his new home that only can get phone service through Verizon at this point in time. So he began looking into alternatives: wireless, calling cards, and finally, VoIP. He went with Vonage as his new VoIP phone service provider, and signed up for broadband from TimeWarner at the same time.

Having heard of Vonage before, as most of you have, I was interested to find out what his experience was like, and how it compared to the "dial-tone quality" of Verizon and all the other Baby Bell's. I was expecting a somewhat negative experience for him because although he's completely technically proficient with computers (he tests software), his wife and two kids are not *as* proficient, and might have had problems or major complaints with his uptake of this 'cutting edge' tech.

WOW! I was impressed! Not only did he say that installing Vonage was a pretty simple chore, but the clarity and quality of his long distance calls was BETTER than his old phone service through Verizon. (Actually I'm not too surprised at that, but impressed none-the-less).

His only complaint is that he can only have one phone hooked up to the 'appliance' that Vonage provides, and therefore it's not possible to have "multiple phone lines" throughout the house, nor have more than one phone to call out on.

I'm sure it would be trivial for some of us on /. to throw together a system that CAN run multiple phones throughout a house, or to use completely open source solutions to do VoIP, but he's happy with the Vonage solution, especially since he gets broadband internet AND phone service for only about $30/mth more than he was paying for Verizon's simple phone service (including dial-up internet connection), AND his wife doesn't find it difficult to use either which would be very important in my situation as well. ;)

I know my wife will want VoIP as soon as it's possible to direct all the phone lines in the house to one central server handling the VoIP protocols for us in our new condo.

I already am. Vonage runs $40/mo for unlimited calling within the US and Canada. I did the math, and found that I could double my DSL upload speeds (which was needed as the 1.5/128k ADSL connection I had was not quite enough upload) and slightly reduce my monthly telco/internet costs. Since I'm on DSL, I still had to keep a landline, but it's the uber cheap one ($13/mo), had I been on cable the savings would've been even better. I'm totally happy with it. I did need to setup queueing on my outbound router to prioritize VOIP (so somebody hammering my webserver wouldn't kill my phone) but on a normal home network the thing would be plug and play. For that matter, if your home servers are low load you probably wouldn't need to bother prioritizing at the router; I found packet loss in testing (having a freind hammer the server while we were on the phone) but it took me 3 weeks before I got around to setting up the router and we never had a problem in actual use. But I was more than happy to have an excuse to play with altq. ;-)

..I use Vonage for my phone at home. I do not even have a land-line installed in my apartment. I find the features to blow any phone company away, and the price and service is excellent.

Besides the overall geekness of being totally VoiP, I have had nothing but good experiences with it.

And I get to have an LA and NY number....
Rob

I use Vonage VOIP for my home phone and they require 90kbps both ways in their default config. They have an option to reduce the call quality, and thus the size. 90kbs is about 2/3rds the way to standard phone quality comming from cell phone quality, if that makes since to you.

Microsoft has been adamant that the Xbox is and will remain a gaming platform. Period. The knee-jerk reaction to news of additional capabilities, such as voice and music, is "The Xboxes aren't selling as game consoles, so they're trying other applications in hopes of selling more boxes."

This doesn't make much sense when one considers that Microsoft loses money on every Xbox. The bill of materials is $400-$500, and they retail for $200. That difference can't be made up on volume. This business model is to lose money on the consoles but make it back (and then some) on the games, much like the razor/blade model. Games are high-margin products, especially those created in-house, and I would think that the Xbox business case is dependent upon preserving those margins. So pushing the Xbox as an enabler of low-margin services doesn't make much sense. Let's look at those mentioned...

Voice
Sure, Xbox Live voice quality is pretty good. Since Xbox Live requires broadband, it's not tough to obtain toll quality. But why would they want to? There are many reasons why voice over IP hasn't taken off (customers don't want to be tethered to their PCs, long distance is already cheap -- you'd better not be paying more than $0.05/minute for interstate calls), and to my knowledge Xbox Live doesn't have the billing capabilities required for voice services. The article states that Microsoft would move the chat capability to the Xbox Live dashboard, which implies the requirement of an Xbox Live subscription. It's unlikely that this feature would convince consumers to subscribe to Xbox Live. Microsoft would also need VOIP-PSTN gateways, so their customers can call people who don't use an Xbox. Telephone service is complicated. Maybe Microsoft would partner with a company such as Vonage, but they certainly aren't the easiest to work with.

Music
A neat capability, much like the QCast Tuner for the PlayStation 2. Consumers have shown little willingness to pay for this, however, as they're accustomed to free players. Service like Rhapsody and pressplay would undoubtedly benefit from freedom from the shackles of the PC, but their revenue shares are micenuts compared with Microsoft's costs. Given the current crop of LAN-to-stereo bridges, like the AudioTron and the SimpleFi, the Xbox does stand out, but this advantage may be gone in a few months when the likes of Linksys launch its low-cost device.

Movies
One of the reasons for Movielink's slow start is the simple fact that most consumers prefer to watch movies on their TVs, not their PCs. This problem is defeated with the Xbox in the mix, as it enables high-quality video output to the TV. Perhaps Microsoft plans to download the top 3-4 pay per view movies to the Xbox hard drive each night (Movielink movies are 500-600MB each, so they would easily fit on the 8-9GB Xbox HDD), so when the consumer chooses a popular movie playback begins immediately. The margins on this business are low, too. And Microsoft will compete with existing TV-based PPV and Video on Demand, which is slowly rolling out to cable systems. This makes a tough market even tougher.

Summary
Low margin + low penetration services will not lift the Xbox to profitability. Great games will. Strong Xbox Live games will give customers a reason to pay $9.95 a month for the service. Hopefully the EA/AOL exclusivity deal will end soon, so Xbox can benefit from good sports titles. Until the games improve, Microsoft is rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. They have the cash to be patient, however.

Disclaimer: I work fo

This is already available from Vonage. They provide VOIP allowing you to select your area code (I picked 617 so my family can call me w/o paying long distance charges). Since the $39/month rate includes unlimited calls to USA and Canada, I forward to my cell phone when I am not home -- giving me lifetime cell number (and more) without being locked into a cell provider.

I'd like to see vonage dump the cisco voice ip routers and let us use phones like this on our exisiting wifi setup.

Does this make voice over ip services like vonage illegal? Subscribers can choose a phone number in any area code thus indirectly conceiling their physical location to the person being called. A person could be making the call from next door or from another continent and the person on the receiving end would be none the wiser.

I actually signed up for Vonage earlier today. The neighbourhood where I live (Avery Ranch) has fiber to all the homes. A provider called ClearWorks gave us Digital TV (which sucks more or less), as well as internet access (say 300K downstream, 100-200K upstream), and phone service. Apparently Clearworks is having some financial difficulties, and looks like they are dropping the phone service. We got a letter the other day saying we had to find a new provider, so I decided to investigate Vonage.

I actually already have a Cisco IP phone Cisco IP phone at home that I used for work (telecommuter), so I know that VoIP works great. My Cisco ATA box hasn't arrived yet ( this is the box you plug your standard POTS line into, and plug that into your home network), but even still we're using our new Vonage server right now by forwarding our (new) home number to the long distance number (in Canada) we want to call. I just hung up a few minutes ago and found the service to be pretty good, although I could notice a slight echo, which could be related to the phone that I was calling from. Basically $40/month for unlimited local AND long distance in US/Canada, as well as a ton of other cool features, like accessing your voice mail over the web, email notifications w/caller id on new messages, etc. We should save about $100/month in phone bills, so if I have to, I'll put up with a little echo :-) Hopefully my ATA box will arrive in the next couple of days, and hopefully my network connection will survive 2 VoIP phones online at the same time :-)

Do you know what really pisses me off? For the last two years I have been paying $3 a month on my phone bill for "Number Portability Charge". Whenever I have actually tried to "port" my number there is always a reason why it can't be done.

I'm sick and tired of telcos. This month I am moving to a new home so I did some research into VoIP. I found a service from Vonage which allows me to setup a VoIP connection to a POTS system over broadband. It is SIP and H323 compatible. It costs only $39.99 a month and gives me unlimited free calls everywhere in the US and Canada, anytime. Not only that, but because it isn't classified as a communications service there are no surcharges. Just for comparison, Verizon offers a similar flat fee package for $64.99. The taxes and surcharges that they conveniently separate from the price add another $40 per month.

Good riddance...

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.

There is a company I use called Vonage. They provide you with a free Cisco ATA when you signup. You aren't renting it, you own it. You pay $10 for shipping (I got mine two days later) and your first month and your good to go. Has caller-id, three way calling, voicemail and some really powerful forwarding features that can make your phone bounce all over the place and then back to your voicemail with them. One draw back is they have a cancellation fee (about $39 I think). All in all, they have been great for us... it is our only phone now. Upstream requirement is 90kbs. And no, I don't work for them... just a satisfied customer.