Switching from Phone to Voice-Over-IP?

An anonymous reader asks: "I am fed up with the telcos. My last phone bill for one line was over $100 _without_ the $45 for ADSL, so i'm looking to cut as many costs as I can. I've compared my current Voice + Internet solution to one consisting of Voice-over-IP and Cable Internet and it looks like I would save over $50 a month by throwing away my land-line phone and switching to Cable/VoIP. I'm new to the whole changing-from-POTS-to-VoIP process though, so what are some of the 'gotchas' involved with switching? Can I keep my existing number? Will calls suck my bandwidth dry? And most importantly, do any of these VoIP providers work with or support Linux?"

Re:new search engine!!!: google.com

[greenhide]

Yup, it sure sounded to me like he was interested in the latest in research on VoIP technologies.

Oh, wait a tic. He wasn't.

He wanted human-readable information about what the relative costs and reliability of VoIP was; whether he could receive incoming calls to his current number; and what some of the "gotchas" might be in switching to VoIP.

None of which were addressed by the matches to your search.

The only possible question that might have been answered is what VoIP providers support Linux. I have a feeling that since he already pointed to Vonage, he has done *some* preliminary research on Google. No doubt he wants assurances from those who have actually tried VoIP, not just companies trying to sell it, that they actually support Linux.

If the most helpful comment you have is to tell someone to use Google, then keep quiet. Unless the slashdot is something along the lines of "What is the definition of blah-blah?" or "Where is a good place to buy computers?", the person has probably googled it, found that the results weren't useful, and turned to /. for help.

Are you sure you want to completely switch?

[Tyrdium]

One of the reasons phone service is expensive is because of the 911 access. With POTS, you're able to call 911 easily and reliably, even in severe conditions (e.g. blackout). With VoIP, you don't get the ability to do that well. Any time your internet service goes out (admit it; it's more often than your POTS goes out), you'll lose the ability to call 911. What if there's a blackout? Will your DSL/cable modem and computer be hooked up to a good UPS? And what if you're under attack or something? Will you have the time to wait for your computer to boot up before calling 911?

Re:Link to Skype. OneSuite.

[Anonymous Coward]

Both of these make me realize that the telephone companies are charging too much. When you talk, you are only transferring a few bits of digital information. Everyone's conversations are aggregated into a huge data stream that is very cheap to send by optical fiber.

Please dig up all of north america and bury fiber. Then get back to us about how cheap it really is.