I was looking for cheap local phone service with no monthly fees, only pay based on usage, and to use a home phone, not a computer for access. This is a different then Vontage which is relatively low monthly fees and unlimited usage. The reason for this is that I prefer to use a cell phone for most calls but want to have a home phone as well. The service I chose was gizmo (http://www.gizmoproject.com/) service which charges $0.019 per minute calls to normal phones, no monthly fees, prepaid. The only "catch" is that I have to add to the pre-paid accounts in minimum increments of $10 and which expire after 6 months if I don't use them. I looked at Skype, but it doesn't do true VOIP so if you want to use their service without a computer you have to buy an expensive proprietary Skype phone, not my normal phone. I purchased an ATA, an analog telephone adapter so I can still use my normal phone. Plus, so I didn't have to purchase a phone number from the gizmoproject (for $3 a month), I instead use the Grandcentral service (http://www.grandcentral.com/) from Google which give a user a free access number which calls all of your phone numbers, cell phone, home, work, and even your GIZMO account. So my setup looks like this
Outgoing calls
Home phone -> ATA (Grandstream HT488 Adapter) -> Comcast Internet -> Gizmo Project -> Normal Phone Network -> End Phone number
Incoming calls
End user caller -> Normal Phone Network -> Google GrandCentral Service -> Gizmo project -> Comcast Internet -> ATA (Grandstream HT488 Adapter) -> Normal Phone
I'm going to use this for a few days and then write more about my experiences.
