Well not exactly free, but $4.99 a month for an unlimited number of calls is quite incredible. How am I managing this exactly? Well it’s not some magical telepathy; it’s thanks to the most popular VoIP service out there, Vonage. Yes, that wonderfully unknown and never seen company, the one without a single advert anywhere.

So my stint with Vonage started back in August when I moved to San Jose for yet more college and decided that I just couldn’t stand old telecoms. I decided that I was going to do without them. I signed up two days early for SpeakEasy’s OneLink service, a whopping 6000/768K service that takes $115 worth of agony out of me every month and doesn’t require an existing phone line. Oh and wow, they’re the best ISP ever!!! The day after that I signed up with Vonage on their Premium Unlimited service which cost $29.99 at the time. The modem was free (well free if you count the fact that they should give you back the $29.99 activation fee should you cancel). So in that first month it was $73.23, not bad considering that SBC wanted $36 out of me to activate plus $76 a month for the same unlimited calling to the US and Canada. I really couldn’t justify that cost and having to deal with the phone company.

The modem came a few days later while I was still on my DSL Extreme (also a pretty good ISP, but nothing compared to SpeakEasy) account in Joshua Tree. Initial impressions were quite good, quality was good, and I had no complains. Luckily I timed the SpeakEasy service just right so that it was activated the morning after I got up here. I had the Motorola modem Vonage provided plugged in and had my 408 number up and working again (without a handset though ). The service with the extra bandwidth seemed even better with literally no realization that it was going through the net. My comms set up basically has the DSL modem, then the Linksys router, the Moto VoIP modem plugged into the router along with the GigE hub and other PC’s. So I’m not relying on what I’ve been told is crappy Moto routing in the VoIP modem.

I won’t really get into the back end stuff that Vonage has in terms of extra features, needless to say CID works great, along with the little message waiting light I have on the Vtech phone, call waiting, the works. Only real minor issue that sometimes crops up is with three way call disconnects; once had a third party still on after switching. I haven’t had any hidden fees or anything to complain about, I don’t consider the $1.80 and $1.50 crap tax to be anything major, expected really.

The real test I had with Vonage was when I was up on Slashdot, not only did my DSL service and server survive, I was able to test out the VoIP service as well. Amazingly I made and held a good quality conversion with Jon in Canada and even managed a three way call with the UK (which btw only costs like $.03 a minute, or $.28 for a mobile). It never disconnected and only garbled once or twice, pretty sweet.

I’m not too sure when they added these UK virtual phone numbers but I just noticed them the other day. Which is what these free calls from the UK are all about. Basically since all these VoIP services allow you to be anywhere with that has an Internet connection, you can pretty much choose a phone number in any area code they have allocated. I can have a number in 760, 408, 425, 310, whatever, all ring here, all would be local calls for anyone in that area code. In addition they’ve got these virtual numbers in addition to the primary, which is basically the same but is receiving only and costs $4.99 a month more. I added a London virtual number to my account and now because I’ve got unlimited calls and it rings me here basically I can have anyone in the UK call me for free. At least on my end. At the other end of course it’s the cost of a call from wherever in England to London. For BT and NTL lines it’s usually 1p – 3p a minute, on mobiles it’s usually included for free with the inclusive minutes on various plans. It’s actually rather scary. I still can’t figure out how Vonage is able to make money on this. And it’s definitely free, I’ve had 4 people in random UK locations call me.

Last but not least, you can have Vonage ring a second number at the same time as your primary home phone before it sends the call to voicemail. I’ve got it going to my mobile. So in a way I’ve kind of got a incoming UK mobile. Very scary indeed. But damn, why did Americans ever allow themselves to be screwed by the providers here and let themselves be charged for incoming calls on mobiles!? Probably that 51% that figured it was okay because it was “air time”. Bastards!