re Old Dogs II

Jeff Tucker’s comment about being the computer-fix-it man for relatives is right-on.

This brings to mind a pretty cool telephone service I switched to a few months back: Vonage offers VOIP (voice over IP). If you have a high-speed Internet connection such as cable modem, you can cancel your home phone service and transfer your same home telephone number (in most cases) to Vonage. They give you a little ATP box. You buy a $40 router and plug it into your cable modem. The computer plugs into the router, so it can still access the Internet; and the ATP box plugs into the router. You plug your telephone into the ATP device instead of the jack in the wall. The ATP box gives your phone a dial tone, and transmits your telephone calls over the Internet, via your cable modem.

Once you get it set up, it’s pretty transparent to the user: you use your same phone; it rings, dials, has dial tone like usual; can receive calls; place calls, etc. For $26/month + $1 federal excise tax, you get unlimited local plus 500 minultes of long distance; for $40 you get unlimited long distance. It sounds about as good as regular phones; on occasion it drops, and if cable goes out, your phone does too–but nowadays most of us have cell phones to use as backups in such cases.

Unlike regular home phone service, the only fee is the $1 tax; all those other service fees and taxes don’t exist. Plus, voicemail, call forwarding, etc. are all included; and you can check your voicemail on the web and get email notification of new voicemail (you can even download the .WAV file of a voicemail and store or email it). International long distance is extremely cheap; I love the service.

What reminded me about it was they are now offering a toll free number for $5/month, which gives you 100 free incoming minutes and only 4.9 cents for additional ones. I just signed up for it, and gave the toll free number to my relatives in Louisiana. As soon as I spread the word, I got my first call from my Grandma–the sweetest woman in the world but so parsimonious that she would almost never call anyone long distance. Now, she can call me at whim.

As soon as I switched to Vonage my local carrier offered me this $40-50/month unlimited long distance + local plan, but it would still have about $15 of taxes and fees. I’d rather pay Vonage than the federales.

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2:06 pm on August 21, 2003