VoIP?

Speakeasy, my DSL provider, is foisting a mandatory upgrade on me. I can upgrade my existing service, at no charge (plus I get a new free modem, which I don't need), or I can upgrade into their OneLink service with free hardware and a free month of service.

I love my Speakeasy service. I have loved it since I got it. I am extremely hesitant to change anything about the service, it's been that good for me. But the VoIP offering is appealing. It offers free long distance, including overseas calls to 22 countries. That's pretty neat (even if I don't have anyone to call!).

The big drawback to the OneLink, that I can see, is that you can only connect a single physical telephone to the line. That will be somewhat impractical in our house.

Does anyone have any experience with Speakeasy OneLink? Is it great? Does it suck? Should I just take the regular hardware upgrade, and pass on the VoIP for now?

5 Comments

On Mar 11th, 2006 at 04:35am morydd added:

While I can't say anything about Speakeasy, I can say I love the VOIP I've got. If for no other reason than less of my money goes to ~~Ma BellAmeritech~~ ~~SBC~~AT&T. There is a way around the single-phone issue. (actually there's another that's a bit more involved at vonage's site) We bought an "expandable" phone setup that has the base-station and up to 4 handsets. The handsets only require AC, only the base station needs a phone line hook up. So the base station sits in the office next to the computer and plugs into the phone jack, and the other handsets are scattered throughout the house.

On Mar 11th, 2006 at 11:01am Ryan Duff added:

morydd pretty much nailed what I was going to say. We opted for the multi-handset phones, but I know other people who made a closed-circuit phone system for their house by pluggin in their ATA and disconnecting their phone wires from public service.

I remembered an article on this in PC Magazine last month and was able to dig up the link to the slideshow for you... This might help you visualize the steps listed on the Vonage site.

Oh, and as far as the expandable phones go, I got a Uniden phone (single line, no answering machine) and 3 handsets for $140 on sale at my local office store.

On Mar 11th, 2006 at 02:46pm Elfboy added:

morydd, I'm curious what you do if the power goes out. Do you go without phone service? Or perhaps you have cell phone as a back-up.

On Mar 12th, 2006 at 02:59pm morydd added:

I do, in fact, have a cell phone, and the vonage box is on the UPS with the rest of the computer stuff, so short outages aren't much of an issue. So far, I haven't had a power outage long enough to matter, and generally, don't make many phone calls when the power is out. (Actually, I don't make that many phone calls when the power is on.) Considering most people use cordless phones almost exclusively any more, those are as vulerable to power outages as my setup.

On Mar 15th, 2006 at 02:53am Elfboy added:

Yeah. In fact I use a cordless that, of course, relies on AC exclusively as well. I do still kepp the $10 land line in the bedroom just in case though. I guess my problem is that I just can't quite disconnect myself completely from the traditional phone line. Which is the major reason why I can't bring myself to switch to VoIP, even though it would be more cost effective for me.