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anyone use the wi-fi phone service? either laptop with headset, or one of those wi-fi stand alone phones?
was wondering how well they work..

if you dont mind when you cant make calls due to lame problems. then its ok.

I see a telephone like this, I have a cell phone, it has a crazy minuet plan and free n/w. I make every call from that phone.

If I were to have a "land line" it would be to call 911 when shit hit the fan and likely I cant explain to the disp. so I have caller ID give proper information to send help to my physical address.

I would never consider consumer voip for the 911 emergency, until a lot of people put security and emergency use as the #1 reason to build a consumer voip network and not cheap bandwidth and least cost routing I will always put voip into the cell phone category.

so with that in mind (voip = cell phone) we all have had experences where cell phones just dont work when you need them, or they throw some crazy error. And cell phones are light years ahead of voip.

I have supported teams that use vonnage in one way or the other. bottom line, if its your primary telco you will get angry. If you use it to save cash on all the family that lives out of town and you still have a way to call them in emergency with copper or cell then rock on, you wont get angry with voip when it wont work because your neighbor is downloading a torrent of last nights hero's

good way to get fun rating is just google "vonage sucks"

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If I had an antenna, I would; but I can only transmit on 160 meters.
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DE K7MHI

I apprieciate your frank & accurate response.
For now, I will disregard the VOIP phone.
Might get a headset & try the pc2pc deal w/ the IM's, like you can do with the echolink.

I use Skype along with a VTECH dual mode cordless phone.
Basically it has 2 "green" buttons, 1 for each path.

I send/receive Skype by pressing the lefthand "green" button, and send/receive landline calls by pressing the righthand "green" button.

I have had mostly good success with Skype. I have friends in Mexico, the Ukraine, and other places I talk to. We talk Skype - Skype which is free. You can also make calls at a very low cost from Skype to landline.

Overall I am very pleased with Skype, but still keep landline service at home.

In fact, I would NEVER give up my landline service as there are too many links in the chain to break, such as power outages, internet outages, COMPUTER outages.

As we 'lectricians often say, "the wire don't lie"

I have used Vonage phone service now for six years and I am very happy with it. True power outages and internet problems can interrupt service, but that has happened very rarely for me. When I have had a power outage, I use a cell phone for back up.

I have saved hundreds of dollars on long distance that is free all over the US, Canada, and to parts of Europe. I think that you have pros and cons not matter what service you use. I got tired of my local phone company and their poor service so I voted with my wallet.

I use Skype when I know I'm going to be on a long toll-free call. It beats burning up cell phone minutes. I use a standard old headset which plugs into my laptop, so theoretically I have a 7lb cordless phone.

Did Vonage for a year, then pulled it.
Just use a cell now. I do use that yahoo voice thing every now and then.

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