Internet phone service blossoms / But it still may not be ready for the masses
This article in the San Francisco Chronicle provides a nice overview of some of the trade-offs involved with using an IP telephony provider like Vonage or 8×8 instead of a traditional voice service provider, like SBC. Though I fit the category of early adopter technophile, I don’t make enough phone calls from home to justify making the change based on practical purposes. While it would be a fun experiment, I have no shortage of items on my To Do list of time-consuming geekery. For now, getting a software-based SIP phone working on Linux is a higher priority.
February 19th, 2004 at 4:14 pm
I got a phone at work today - and it is my first VOIP phone. This one is from Vonage. As far as I could tell, the voice quality was excellent - no difference from our previous PBX phones.
So I started checking out the idea of getting a Vonage phone from home. Like you, I don’t make many calls - but my local phone bill + long distance phone bill > $15 (which is the lowest Vonage price). Sure, it’s probably only $30. And Vonage would provide caller id. On the downside, I would have to change my phone number (although some local number portability is available).
Any new thoughts on this subject? I am tempted, but I hadn’t factored in all the costs involved - although as far as I can tell, I can use my existing phones - so it is really just the installation costs (if any) and the time to configure my router to have the new phone line. Hmmm…. definitely tempting…..
Enjoy,
RB
February 22nd, 2004 at 11:16 pm
I’m afraid I haven’t had time to look into this further. I’ve barely had time to keep track of all the new IP softphones that are becoming available for Linux.