Who needs phone lines?
Tim Kowalsky happily cut the cord to his local telephone company. No, he hasn't gone hermit--he's still making calls from home with a familiar touchtone phone. But the calls bounce magically through the Internet before reaching his Minneapolis neighbors or the local pizza parlor. And his phone bill has dropped by about $25 a month.
For the first time since Alexander Graham put the ring in Ma Bell, many Americans have a choice in local phone service. Kowalsky is using Vonage, one of several new services stealing customers from the phone monopolies. All you need is a broadband Internet connection, like a cable modem. Setup takes minutes: Plug a black box into the modem, then plug a standard phone (or phones) into the box.
Internet phoning once meant tinny-sounding voices with a lot of static. "We're trying to educate people that in 2003, Internet calls no longer suck," says Jeff Pulver, a pioneer in the field. He's right. U.S. News tested Vonage and a competitor, VoicePulse. The calls generally sounded good, though friends at the other end sometimes complained of echoes or dropped words. Vonage, for one, suggests tweaks that might ease problems, but Hank Karl, a Connecticut salesman who had difficulty hearing customers, didn't think it was worth the effort. The companies do offer a money-back trial of a couple of weeks.
The outlay is pretty small. Sign-up is $30. Vonage charges $40 a month for all local and domestic long-distance service, and VoicePulse charges $35 for a similar package. A third company, Packet8, is a bargain at only $20 a month, though it includes fewer add-ons, like call-waiting. You'll save even more because Internet calls aren't subject to phone taxes, which add $15 or more to all-you-can-eat plans from Verizon, BellSouth, et alia. That's why Baby Bell monopolies are lobbying regulators to tax the Internet players.
Old-fashioned phones still have some advantages. They can, for example, automatically relay information to 911 call centers; Internet phones cannot. And if the power goes out, so does your Internet phone. A cellphone is one backup option. So is a regular old phone, with a cord, plugged into a phone jack.
But then you'd miss the Internet add-ons that no land line can match. VoicePulse, for example, lets you route frequent callers to a particular option. So your annoying cousin who calls way too often looking to borrow some cash? He'll always be met with a busy signal.
USNEWS.COM
Like to tinker? The "Tech Bits" column reviews a Web phone service that is harder to install but free.
This story appears in the August 11, 2003 print edition of U.S. News & World Report.
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