It seems that there is no end of VOIP solutions with all sorts of really weird catches. For instance: Unlimited minutes with Skype is only $3/month, but if you want a standard phone number for people to call you on, that adds $5/month. There are $80 wireless handsets that need a PC (and is often not compatible with a Mac), but there are also $130 wireless handsets that connect directly to any Wi-Fi access point, needing no PC at all – but they don’t work with a hotel or coffee shop wifi that requires a browser authentication first.
Opportunity: Reduce the cell phone plan minutes, leaving both household cellphones a modicum of minutes for emergencies, and use a voip solution for most of our calls. Moving from a family plan of 1400 minutes to 550 minutes could save us $30/month.
Typically we use about 900 of the 1400 minutes a month. We have 1.5mbps DSL. Here are the options I’m most interested in. Do you have any opinions?
Skype:
As I’ve gotten more involved with the planning committee for the Agile 2009 Conference, it seems that Skype is quite popular internationally for doing over-seas business. Skype has a very nice iPhone application that works well for outbound calls whereever you have a wifi access point (inbound probably works too, but only when the application is running).
As mentioned above though, the billing for Skype is a bit unusual. You pay only for minutes that connect you to a landline or mobile (skype-to-skype is free). The unlimited plan is $3/month. Inbound calling (ie, a normal 10-digit phone number for people to call you on) is another $5/month.
There are a plethora of options for hardware. Most seem to fall into two basic classes of handsets: those that need a computer, and those that don’t. The Belkin WiFi Phone (no PC needed) looks promising, but is $130. A little cheaper is the Keyspan VP-24A for $70, and it requires the Mac to be on all the time. There is also products like the D-Link DPH-50U Skype USB Phone Adapter (roles right off the tongue doesn’t it?) that would be great for using traditional phones, but it is not Mac compatible.
Ooma:
ooma looks really interesting. It’s claim to fame: a disappearing phone bill. An ex-coworker of mine has been using it for a year without issue and loves it. How it works: you buy the hardware for $250 or so, plug your phone and internet cable into it, configure your phone number, and never mess with it again.
Other options:
Just to note it: we could start up a standard land line again, but after taxes it ends up around $24/month for the most basic service available. I’m not interested.
I’ve run across magicJack, which seemed like a reasonable idea until it struck me that their entire site felt like a big infomercial. Apparently it also reinstalls its own icon on your desktop after every reboot too. It requires a computer (pc or mac!), but that is something I’d ideally like to avoid.
There is the classic voip company to consider – Vonage. However, at $25/month for their unlimited plan ($32/month after taxes & fees), it really doesn’t feel like much of a deal.
On top of it all, I’m running all of our internet off of a slower 1.5 Mbps DSL line. Generally, the only time the speed is a problem is when we attempt to stream HD video. Putting a phone line on top of the data may push us to bump the speed to 7Mbps (roughly another $10/month).
Google Voice. This is another one of those “hmm. how can I make this work for me” things. It seems like this could be part of the puzzle, but I’m not sure how yet.
A different tactic all together: the majority of our minutes come from a small set of people. If we could get them to all switch to our cell phone carrier, then the minutes would all be free.
Final thoughts:
Skype, at $8/month + a $130 handset is intriguing. But if I end up needing faster internet ($10/month) then I’m only saving $12/month for what feels like a rather technical solution.
Ooma, is $0/month + $250 for the device. Seems like a good deal if it works for multiple years. But not paying for a phone number that everyone uses to call us makes me sorta nervous. Will it still work in a year? In 2 years?
In the end, I’m not sure. There are some savings to be had, but running with 2 cell phones for this household and no land line (voip or not) is not at all as extravagantly expensive as I had originally thought. Perhaps I won’t embrace change this time. Or more apt – I won’t embrace the change yet.
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