Internet phone services offer a bundle, but can still create static.

When Vonage – an internet phone service — promised to give me a phone line with a load of features, I was skeptical. The bundle included voice messages in my email, text message notification, nationwide long distance, call forwarding and call mobility, all manageable through a slick web interface.

A few months later and I’m hooked.

Unlike a traditional landline phone, Vonage depends on my broadband internet connection to work. The technical term is VoIP, or Voice-over-Internet-protocol. I plug a special adapter that I picked up at Best Buy for about $50 (though cheaper options cost half that) into a standard phone and the adapter into a port on my router just like I do my computer.

The only problem I’ve run into is that because Vonage phone signals — my voice and the voice of whom I talking to — travel over the same _nternet lines shared by my computers, iPhone and various other Internet-enabled devices in the house, the quality isn’t always crystal clear. The static, though, has never been enough for me to hang up and try the call on my cell.

And if the cable internet goes down, my phone goes with it. That’s not been much of a problem with my current Internet provider (Time Warner) and Vonage has a feature that will automatically forward calls to my cell phone in the event of an Internet outage.

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I already have the system set to simultaneously ring my cell phone whenever someone calls the Vonage line so that I never miss a call, anyway. And if I do — the caller’s message left on my voice mail is sent to my email as an audio attachment that I can listen to on my computer or my iPhone (many other smart phones can play audio attachments in email, too). For an additional fee, Vonage will transcribe your messages and email them to you as text you can read.

You can also keep your current phone number or get a new one, from anywhere in the country. You don’t have to live there. That can be handy if you have relatives or business clients in other state and you want to give them a local number to call you with.

That comes with a catch, though. Unless you specifically set an emergency address in Vonage’s web interface, 911 dispatchers won’t know where you are if you call them from your Vonage number. Once the address is set, though, you’re good to go.

Plans start at $17.99 for 500 minutes a month, but the plan you want will cost $24.99 plus a few dollars in regulatory fees and taxes, just like your cell and landlines. There aren’t any set up fees with Vonage if you just want to use your computer to make calls.

Justin McLachlan is SDNN's personal technology columnist.

Otherwise, you’ll need some kind of adapter to hook up your regular phone. Some international calling is included — to Canada, Puerto Rico and select European countries. Calls to landlines in Mexico are a penny a minute if you have an unlimited plan.

Time Warner, Cox and Comcast offer similar services, but their fees and features vary. And as much as I like Vonage, there’s a free internet calling service that might get me to switch. Google Voice launched this week to a select few across the country, though it’ll be available nationwide in the coming weeks. More on that to come.

Justin McLachlan is a freelance journalist and the personal technology columnist for SDNN.com.

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This entry was posted on Monday, June 29th, 2009 at 10:09 am and is filed under Business, Giving’em the Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.