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May 11, 2004
Say goodbye to the phone company
In this day and age, could one get rid of local phone service? We're paying about $150 per month for internet access + two cell phones, do we really need the extra $25 to Verizon for a phone line we hardly ever use?
My first choice would be to switch to free pc-based services like Skype and (shameless plug) SightSpeed, but somehow I doubt that the same people who insist on calling our home line rather than a cell phone (read: family) will start using these.
The best choice seems to be voice over ip service from Vonage or Packet8. They'll send you a little box that plugs into your home network, and you plug any standard phone into that little box.

Sometimes you can even keep your phone number. Calls to other subscribers of the same service are free and the low cost plans allow about 500 nationwide minutes for $15 - $20 per month.
Vonage claims that we can keep our current phone number - I'm going to look into it.
Posted by sam at 10:28 AM | Comments (3)



