Do you SIP?

One of the topics that always tends to come up in work conversations is how much phone, internet, and cable providers charge for their services. I'm not a fan of paying a lot for these services, and phones are a big thorn in my side. Having had a particularly unpleasant experience with Qwest (MN) two years ago, I decided that I didn't need to even think about a land line until I moved into a more permanent dwelling, aka house. Right now I just use my cell phone for my limited amount of calls, but the problem is that my number is not local to where I live. Great for my parents, not for my friends and family who actually live near me. With this in mind, the only real benefit from getting a land line now is to be nice to other people and there is no way I'm going to pay a monthly bill to a phone company just to be nice; sorry guys.

So what has caught my eye? More and more VoIP services have sprung up as a great alternative to your standard phone options. You can get Vonage for about $20/mo which isn't too bad, but still not good enough for me to hop on. Skype also offers a pretty good deal for SkypeIn and SkypeOut is free which means you could choose to only pay a monthly fee for incoming calls made on land lines. A few of the concerns are that it's still only in beta and I haven't been super impressed by their computer to computer service, although not deterred by it either.

Today I read about the Gizmo project and this sounds promising. It does have a per minute charge of $0.01 cent for out going calls to land lines, but their incoming calls are a slightly cheaper than Skype if you pay for a year. The niceties include being able to call 60 different countries (Skype only does US and Canada), it's compatible with GoogleTalk, and it has this Area775 option. I've only looked into the 775 thing enough to know that I probably won't need it, but it seems like it could be useful for a small or home business. It allows you to be reached through your computer or "real" phone and can be switched (for a fee) during the call. You can also get a fax number and screen your calls, features that Skype is lacking as far as my minimal digging has shown.

While I don't intend to try any of these tools out right now, you can be sure that I'll be keeping my eye on them to see where they go.