Suggestions for a Home VOIP Provider? 250
nate1138 asks: "My wife and I recently relocated so that I could take a promising position with a better company. Her job, being the fairly progressive folks that they are, graciously agreed to let her telecommute. Most of the services she needs we already have set up, such as the VPN, and VNC for remote control, etc. Now we only have one thing left to do. Get a phone line. Her office is a long distance call from our new location, and she needs to be able to call customers throughout the southeast as well. Since we need a number with a different area code from our home, it looks like voice over IP is the only solution. I want to know what you folks think about the various VOIP providers, like Packet8,
Vonage, and
Broadvoice. Or any other that I haven't thought of. Or another way to solve the same problem without shelling out a boatload o' cash. Features are the last priority, while reliability is tops."
Unlimited Long Distance (Score:2, Insightful)
Are you sure your phone company doesn't have a package with unlimited in-country or in-state long distance calling?
Re:Unlimited Long Distance (Score:5, Informative)
NuFone is good for outgoing long distance calls. They charge in 15 second increments to many numbers (others are 30 or 60 seconds) and are pretty darned cheap compared to other providers.
I have great luck with Vonage for my local calling (North America, flat rate is like, $45 p/m and gets you all the dandy doodads). I also have Asterisk setup to receive faxes and Email them to me, so far no corrupted pages at all and the bandwidth usage is pretty reasonable.
I have this setup on my Asterisk box (Vonage attaches using an X100P card ($100 from Digium [digium.com] for the real-thing, clones have been spotted for cheap including $0.99 but YMMV), NuFone is native IAX).
Cordless phone is attached using a Grandstream [grandstream.com] Ata-286, so I can wonder around the house with a cordless headset whilst talking to who-ever using VoIP.
and don't forget to register your number on e164.org [e164.org], for native voip ;)
This is an incumbment free zone
Road Runner (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Unlimited Long Distance (Score:2)
I'd say for calling into the office, the best bet would be to set up a toll free number that goes to the receptionist or (if you don't have one) to a voice response menu that lets you dial an extension.
For callin
Do you have cellular coverage in your area? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Do you have cellular coverage in your area? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Do you have cellular coverage in your area? (Score:2)
Re:Do you have cellular coverage in your area? (Score:2)
Just also how i have a 3 day supply of food, batteries, and the reliable M4.
Re:Do you have cellular coverage in your area? (Score:3, Informative)
Yes.
Re:Do you have cellular coverage in your area? (Score:4, Informative)
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Do you have cellular coverage in your area? (Score:2)
Re:Do you have cellular coverage in your area? (Score:2)
If she needs to spend lots of time on the phone, and if you love her, for goodness sake, get her a headseat or a cell phone with a speakerphone feature.
I have Vonage and I love it (Score:5, Informative)
Check broadbandreports.com for Vonage reviews (Score:5, Informative)
The only bad thing I've heard about Vonage is that it can take a long time if you want to transfer your current phone number to vonage. Check broadbandreports.com [broadbandreports.com] for more Vonage reviews
Re:Check broadbandreports.com for Vonage reviews (Score:5, Informative)
There is one exchange, a rural phone company, that I call and sometime have problems getting through.
Vonage voice quality is good for me, if I put their modem directly on my isp modem. The trick seems to be that they give priority to their traffic over your computer traffic. You could probably get the same effect behind a firewall, if the firewall was sophisticated and you could arrange to prioritize packets. Try openbsd.
I certainally like all the bells and whistles. But I keep a POTS too.
Notice though that their recommended setup puts your firewall in as a dchp client. If you are lucky enough to have static ips, then this might make you think a bit. The parent poster just hung it off the router so the modem quality of service attributes do not come into play. This in my experience reduces call quality sometimes, depending on the computer traffic.
Re:Check broadbandreports.com for Vonage reviews (Score:2)
FAXING IS HORRIBLE
This has to do with the fact that faxing over current VOIP protocols isn't really useful but if you check http://www.vonage-forum.com and http://www.dslreports.com you will see plenty of people who just can't fax with Vonage. I've had mixed results.
Voice is great, however.
Re:I have Vonage and I love it (Score:2, Informative)
My phone bill was cut by about 2/3. My wife's family is in LA, and she calls several times a day. $100+ per month down to $37
Re:I have Vonage and I love it (Score:2)
> phone bill was cut...to $37
That's certainly an improvement. I've had pretty good results with Packet8, and they're only $19.95...I have had reliability issues, but none that were really attributable to 8x8's service. My troubles were all blatantly Comcast's fault (my former ISP). I knew this because whenever I was having trouble with the phone I'd hang up and go check my pings. mail.comcast.net...average ping 1000ms. Thanks Comcast. My advice would be not
Re:I have Vonage and I love it (Score:3, Informative)
Off topic, but when it comes to Cable/DSL providers, I've always read mixed results from every provider. I suspect it comes down to who, specifically, is running the local equipment...
I'm with Comcast currently and the service has yet to have an issue (about 6 months now). I had Sprint/Earthlink DSL back in Florida, Road Runner cable (Time Warner) also in FL, and Bell South DSL in Georgia. Road
Re:I have Vonage and I love it (Score:3, Informative)
First, the voice quality and connectivity drop off with any major IO traffic. If I'm downloading a large file, the voice sounds choppy. Useable but choppy. Consider what bandwidth usage the system will have while she is at work.
All my local calls are now long distance calls. Just a hassle remembering to dial long distance to talk to my neighbor.
There is a very slight delay in the sy
Re:I have Vonage and I love it (Score:2)
I can certainly agree about the long distance savings. My Nuvio account only costs me about $40/month for their unlimited account and I probably use over 1000 minutes of long distance a month. Used to cost me an arm and a leg
Or.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Or.... (Score:2)
Re:Or.... (Score:3, Informative)
As far as Vonage goes.. if you DO NOT I repeat DO NOT have POTS service you can backfeed the vonage analog signal into your home telephone network and get service to phones in any room.
Re:Or.... (Score:3, Informative)
You can also go outside and disconnect the POTS line if possible, just to make sure.
One word of caution.. don't hook up too many phones at once if you are doing this.... each phone you pick up (or that rings) (if the house is wired correctly) adds load to whatever is driving.. and if all that's driving is your little SIP box... you could fry it.
Re:Or.... (Score:2)
That's an interesting point.
1. How many is too many?
2. Wouldn't the devices just fail to ring or have a faint ring?
I wonder if you could rig some sort of dc injector as a work around?
Re:Or.... (Score:2)
Re:Or.... (Score:3, Informative)
I use Vonage at a colo where there's no cell service (underground, surrounded by metal, isn't good for reception), but I use my cell everywhere else.
I'm reachable 24/7, which means it goes near my bed at night, and on my hip or on my desk the rest of the time. The only time it gets shut off is when I'm on airplanes,
Re:Or.... (Score:2)
YMMV I suppose.
Re:Or.... (Score:2)
Reliability (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Reliability (Score:2)
> existing internet connection
Good point. It does make it a bit harder to call for support on your Internet service, if your phone works over it too.
If you really need Reliability... (Score:2)
You must have a POTS (plain old telephone service) line. They are usually regulated by the state, and are mandated to provide service with minimal downtime. This usually means built-in redundancy in the entire system (including power). When the WTC towers went down, I was still able to call out on a POTS line. When the Northeast Blackout occurred the following year, I was able to call out on a POTS line.
As critical as internet service is, I doubt it has "5 nines" in reliability. When it goes out for t
Re:If you really need Reliability... (Score:3, Interesting)
Vonage (Score:2)
A friend of mine bought one for home, and now doesn't have a traditional wired phone at all.
Another guy who has space in one of the colo's we're in also has a Vonage phone, and has the additional service to let him use his laptop as a phone, with a little headset plugged into his mic and headphone jacks. He's very satisfied also.
So, out of 3 people I know that have it
Vonage (Score:5, Informative)
My experience is that tech support takes FOREVER to get someone on the line if you have trouble. When I say forever, I am talking about 45 minutes plus.
Other than that, it is great.
Opposite experience (Score:2)
Re:Vonage (Score:2)
Linspire (Score:3, Informative)
First thing I see at... (Score:2)
I have been using the Call-in-One adapter for two days, and I am still unable to get a good call quality - people are not able to hear me very clearly. The quality so far is worse than the PC to telephone services like 4ecalls. I hope that this will improve.
Just one other question, while I am making a SIP call, the "activity" light is not steady. Is this normal?
My VoIP experience (Score:2, Informative)
Re:My VoIP experience (Score:2)
That said, I would think it would be easy to handle with a simple Linux router (or any other that would allow you) to give VOIP traffic priority over everything else. Whatever is left of your bandwidth after the VOIP packets, goes to other stuff. This wouldn't be that hard to do, would it?
Re:My VoIP experience (Score:2)
Re:My VoIP experience (Score:2)
Voicepulse? Nufone? But definitely not Vonage. (Score:2)
Well, I was just spammed advertising Vonage not more than an hour ago, so they're definitely out.
Voicepulse [voicepulse.com] or for the true geek Voicepulse Connect [voicepulse.com] are well worth a look.
I've also heard good things about nufone
But test carefully before relying on it. For business use voice quality is pretty important and VoIP is at the "about as good as POTS" level, which might be acceptable or might not, depending on how sensitive you are to the difference in sound distortion between consumer grade VoIP and consumer
Roll Your Own? (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems like the best way to do it (and cheapest) would be to call from your computer over the internet to a computer in the city you wanted to call to, which would then hook up to the regular phone line via a modem. I was looking for something like this, but haven't found anything on freshmeat, etc. (Any links out there?)
It seems quite possible. You tell the computer what local number you want, it dials it, and then just acts as a gateway between you (on the internet) and the person you're talking to (on a normal phone line). Nothing too complicated. If you get the reliability up, this might be your best bet.
Re:Roll Your Own? (Score:2)
Look at Asterisk [asterisk.org] for the server side of things and at least one IP phone (the Grandstream BudgeTone [atacomm.com] series are around 70-80). Put a X100P FX0 [atacomm.com] to give the Asterisk server access to an o
ipp fone from pulver.com (Score:2, Informative)
Packet8 information... (Score:5, Informative)
The $20 a month gave me unlimited calls anywhere in quote-unquote North America (step back Mexico - you're not part of North America anymore, the phone companies have deleted you.) Of course you can use the phone anywhere in the world, but you can only call Canada and the US for free with the $20 plan. But even the long distance rates are very reasonable -- for me to phone Norway is only something like 2 cents a minute.
The problem with the phone isn't the service, or which VOIP provider to choose -- it's the internet connection it's running on. If you're internet connection has a few hiccups here and there, or if you're just physically far away, your QOS will be shot. I recommend posting a follow up question of "Which ISP is best for VOIP?" Latency is a big issue, of course. Even some of the ISP's route occasionally via satellite, and that's just great for VOIP connections (great for VOIP connections... what? ...connections... bzzzzzzzzzt... what? Hello? Son of a ...!)
My conclusion is: it's okay, and it's a cheap phone. There are some sacrifices. And Packet8 is loads cheaper than Vonage and includes free equipment, or at least used to. Plus you don't have to deal with the bastards at the phone company anymore, which makes any sacrifice worth it! Hurray! But for $20 a month and no long distance, go for it, just use the referral code to save being screwed on "installation." If you just want to try it for a while, try Free World Dialup until you're comfortable -- although that's a lot more complicated to set up versus a ready to run system like Packet8 or Vonage. Good luck.
Re:Packet8 information... (Score:2, Informative)
Packet8 has a bunch of the services that I don't use (callerID, call waiting...), because I don't get ANY telemarketing calls, that is the #1 advantage I see...
Depending on where you live... (Score:2)
out FeatureTel [featuretel.com]. AFAIK, they only service the Raleigh / RTP / Durham / Chapel Hill area of NC right now.
Also, in at least some areas, Time Warner Cable is now offering home VOIP service. So if you're in the TWC area, you might give them a call.
Whats required for vonage like services? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Whats required for vonage like services? (Score:2)
VOIP will work just fine if they are higher.
I've used it over much worse (600 to 1000ms, via satellite). What's more important is stable latency, not the latency itself.
Obviously there is an audible delay if latency is high... but beyond that, it works just fine.
Same situation and I use Sprint (Score:2, Informative)
We have a Sprint cell phone with an AZ number. Because we are Sprint wireless customers, we were offered a $15 a month, all-you-can-eat long distance plan for our home phone. That allows me to call my company's office to talk with coworkers.
It works out pretty well.
Re:Same situation and I use Sprint (Score:3, Insightful)
DSLReports (Score:4, Informative)
Vonage Is Cool (Score:5, Informative)
We haven't regretted switching ONCE. We use the lowest call quality setting and can't even notice a difference. We have a cheapest plane they offer ($14.99 for 500 local/long distance minutes / *every* feature they offer including caller id, voicemail, etc).
Perhaps our favorite feature is the web interface for doing everything. I mean, really...have you ever tried to set up your POTS line for forwarding? The web interface makes it very, very simple and there's no need to reference a manual.
I would recommend Vonage in a heartbeat. Perhaps the poster's wife could just ditch her traditional land line, get Vonage, and use Vonage's "virtual phone number" feature to get a local number in her office's area code.
DSL? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:DSL? (Score:3, Informative)
In any case, you can definitely have DSL without POTS, at least from SBC/Pa
Re:DSL? (Score:2)
If this is incorrect or has changed, please give me a hint how to change my provisioning.
Re:DSL? (Score:2, Informative)
You can keep your DSL, but you must continue to "pay" for a phone line. You can drop the phone service down to the minimum package. Some states/carriers allow you to have a "911 only" line that costs $10-$20 per month.
There are two carriers that offer so-called "naked" DSL. Don't believe it. Qwest charges you the $10 for the phone line on top of their regular DSL price. Then, they sell it to you as "stand-alone" DSL. They turn off dial tone so you don't know you have phone service... but
Re:DSL? (Score:2)
I was too far for "normal" DSL service piggybacked over a POTS line (something like 14 kft.), but there was one provider that was willing to provision DSL over a second dry pair from the CO and pass on the dry pair costs without markup. Worked great, though the $15/month for the dry pair made my DSL bill around $80 a month.
Sadly, I can't remember with certainty the provider I had used.... Internet America, I think.
Re:DSL? (Score:2)
had packet8 for a while (Score:2, Informative)
A router with QoS helped a lot. There was a noticable difference after a did prioritization with OpenBSD's pf.
If reliability is tops, you may not want VoIP (Score:3, Interesting)
My own requirement was that my VoIP provider support my choice in SIP devices. That eliminated several of the vendors on your list as they require use of a Cisco-ATA and lock you out of it. I wanted a more 'open' service. I currently use IConnectHere. For $8.95/mo they provide unlimited incoming calls, Caller-ID, Voicemail, Call-Waiting, Call-Transfer, etc. Outgoing calls cost 3.5 cents/minute.
Addaline (http://www.addaline.com) has recently started offering DID service and has a very economical outgoing rate.
A.
Verizon "all you can eat" landline (Score:3, Informative)
Local calling
Unlimited Long Distance (US only)
Caller ID
Three-way Calling
Voice Mail
Call Forwarding
other misc stuff
I've had it for about five months and I can attest that my phone bill does not vary. No surprises.
I hope this is of some value to you and I wish you luck with your move and your new ventures.
Happy Trails!
Erick
Re:Verizon "all you can eat" landline (Score:2)
Happy Trails!
Erick
Reliability not there yet (Score:2)
In short, it's similar to a cell phone - huge benefits vs. landlines, but the perfect reliability just isn't there yet. I would expect to lose a day or two of phone service each year. Th
VoIP Comparison (Score:5, Informative)
I recently signed up for Packet8's VoIP service, and have been very happy with it.
I would suggest that you read each provider's fine print, as some of them specifically telecommuters from their residential plans, and if they find out that you have been using a residential plan for telecommuting, will charge you the commercial rate for all previous months you've been subscribed.
How to do it with POTS. (Score:3, Interesting)
First option is a "Foreign Exchange" line. Phone at your home office, connected to a switchboard in the city of interest (transparently, via the long-distance infrastructure).
This USED to cost an arm and a leg (or have a large per-minute charge) because it potentially tied up a long distance trunk any time you were off-hook, and a business might be off-hook essentially all day. But now that bandwidth is cheaper than air it might be another story. (Worth a look.)
Second option is to install a phone with call-forwarding and a dirt-cheap flat rate long-distance service, with the jack installed somewhere handy in the distant service area. (If you do business there but don't have an office, you can probably talk someone into letting the jack be at their site.) Set the call-forwarding to your home-office phone, and unplug the distant instrument. People call you, it transfers to your home-office phone. You pay the long distance charge for the call - which is prepaid or nearly free.
Third: Some tellcos have a service (I don't recall what it's called) that is essentially equivalent to number two but without the line to the unplugged phone. (Check with the long-distance providers, too, not just the local tellcos.) Local tellcos might still price this one sky high, but I bet the long-distance companies have a deal on it.
If you enquire about number three, it's too pricey, but number two would do the job in your price range, be SURE not to talk about them both in the same call to the tellco in question. B-)
callvantage (Score:2)
about the phone line (Score:2)
I am not a Multitech droid, I just use their boxen.
I found Vonage neat, but with limitations (Score:2, Informative)
Very cool concept, and I'm a big fan of the company. Great product offering, great customer service, and super convenient in many respects.
But, I discovered a few limitations, and eventually decided that I just didn't need the service anymore.
The latency was a big problem for me. The latency for calls when using Vonage on my cable Internet connection (Cox in So. Cal.) was typically almost 1 second. I estimate that because I could hear the slight
Re:I found Vonage neat, but with limitations (Score:2, Informative)
Reliability? (Score:2)
> is tops.
That rules out anything involving the Net.
Company IP Telephony (IP Agent) (Score:2)
My Vonage Experience, The Conclusion (Score:3, Informative)
I first wrote about my Vonage experiences here on [slashdot.org] and at the time I had basically put them on probation. I fear I've given away the ending of my story in the subject line, but read on anyway.
Since then, I found that I was experiencing really bad echo on certain incoming calls, even when those calls were forwarded from my Vonage phone to my cell phone. I was asked each time I tried to add more detail (by a new tech support person each time who never bothered to read through my issue history) whether my internet connection had enough bandwidth or my phone wiring had been tested... after the second time answer the same questions, I gave up. From then on, I would file additional customer care reports on the echo, from what phone numbers I was getting the most echo for incoming calls, how outgoing calls had no echo, etc. It became a major waste of time, and the fact that Vonage refused to acknowledge that they might have problems in their PSTN-to-VOIP bridges in certain exchanges, choosing instead to pass it off on my own house wiring or internet connection after both of those were eliminated as sources of trouble early on was quite telling.
When my local phone company (Qwest) offered to switch me back for free with 2 months of free service on top of that, I took them up on it. Yes, I went back to Qwest, which is a major indicator. I had the virtual number feature, with a second line in an out-of-state area code, so I asked on the phone of a customer care rep at Vonage if my virtual number could become my primary number once the switch took place, and he assured me verbally that that was no problem.
I'll let you, reader, guess what happened. Hint: if it isn't in writing it isn't true. Especially at Vonage.
I've cancelled my Vonage service. Aside from the nice voicemail features and the useful forwarding feature, and the reasonably-low price, I found the quality of service, the quality of their technical support personnel, the startup process, and the experience on the whole to be a major disappointment. I consider myself to be an early adopter (and I've been in the tech hardware and software business for a while myself), so I was willing to cut Vonage a lot of slack early on with the stumbles and the snafus, and they took all of that slack and then some.
BTW, I would suggest a service provider that doesn't lock you out of your own ATA device. Vonage prevents you from doing much of anything that they don't approve of, which is a major minus on top of their low-grade service.
Vonage / Cox in Phoenix experiences (Score:2)
My dad got Vonage to use with his residential Cox cable modem in Phoenix. My experiences are exclusively those of the other end, a normal POTS phone. I expect to read many perspectives of owners, but probably few from my end.
Normal quality was a bit better than a digital cell phone. Those don't bother most people. I happened to have been pretty sensitive to the digitization that happens with digital cell phones, so I wasn't terribly impressed. There were periods, however, when it seemed like the VOIP
mobitus works well - and they're canadian (Score:3, Informative)
I HAVE to have same number, Vonage alternatives?? (Score:2)
Another review (Score:2)
You already said it... (Score:2)
There you go. You just said it. Don't bother with VOIP, yet - it's just not worth it.
I used Vonage for about 9 months before I finally decided it just wasn't worth it. After 2 weeks back on a landline, I won't be going back. I get unlimited long distance in the U.S. for $20/month. Ask around - it's not hard to find similar plans in most areas of the US.
Dropped calls, weird echos, customers complaining about me talking "through a tunnel" were th
"o"? (Score:2)
DSL or Cable? (Score:2)
Vonage Customer Support and QoS (Score:2)
I'll try to break it down for readability:
1. Call quality - Varies. With some calls, I hear an echo of myself on the line, while other calls are fine. This seems only to be a problem on my end of the line.
Of course, call quality will suffer if you infringe on the amount of bandwidth the VoIP service
Re:Vonage Customer Support and QoS (Score:2)
North of the border (Score:2, Interesting)
Reliability (Score:2)
Vonage (and all voip providers) is dependent on many infrastructures to work. You have to have power, internet, and the blessing of the pope to make calls. I found myself constantly searching for a more releable cable provider, and bought an expensive UPS to keep the router, modem, and voip boxes going. After all that, the power knocked out the cable company. And we ha
Vonage: Multiple incoming #'s (Score:2)
Coolness!
I just got my service activated today, so I've been poking around and seeing what's what. So far, it seems pretty good.
Plugged into Vonage today (Score:3, Informative)
So far, I'm impressed with the features. Voicemail (you can set it so that new messages are emailed to you in
One feature I have enjoyed already is detailed billing. I like the features of cell phones where it will often show detail of the called numbers as well as sometimes even incoming calls. Since I have to sometimes file suit against telemarketers for violation of the TCPA, it is highly beneficial that I have a detailed listing of when calls were made.
You can place the hardware either inside or outside the firewall (if inside open ports 50605061, 53, 69, and 10000-20000 on UDP protocol). If you plug the device into a wall outlet in the house (making *sure* to disconnect the house from the street connection) you can use any other phone in the house as you normally would. Ad of course another last advantage is being able to take the device with you so that you can plug it in and use the phone whenever on a broadband connection. If you make a lot of calls to someone in another country, you could even try purchasing another device and sending it to them so they can take calls as if they were local (to you). I wonder how ling it will be before scammers, spammers, and other scum use this to appear local or in the states, yet be running things from Nigeria or other safe harbor.
Right now Best Buy has a pretty decent sale. I used a 10% off Memorial Day coupon to bring the price to 81 and then it comes with a mail-in rebate. If you use their rewards program ($10 a year) you get 50,000 bonus points for purchasing this item (which equates to 4 $5 Gift Cards). Circuit City has it for 79-50 MIR if you want to go that route.
I've been using Nuvio for a couple months... (Score:2)
The only time I've noticed my service being out is
Re: (Score:2)
VoIP (Score:2)
ZDNet has an article on VoIP and Internet phones [com.com], and they review the providers as well [com.com].
If you just want another number with a different area code for receiving faxes and voicemail, consider EFax [efax.com] or J2/JFax [j2.com] you can get a free account not in your area code, and it will send all faxes and voicemails to your email address. If you pay extra, you can get the ability to send faxes over the Internet from that number, get a 1-800 number, chang
Excellent experiences with Vonage - even abroad! (Score:2)
Alarm Systems? (Score:2)
I understand the argument that all a burgular need do is cut my landline.
Does anybody else have Vonage working with ADT/Guardian?
Packet8 experience (Score:2)
I have been very impressed with it so far. There was a period in late March where the service was offline more than it was on. No idea what the hell they were doing, but it was not just me. It would be down during peak evening hours for about 2 to 3 hours a night. Then it would magically start working again.
Since that period of time, I have
Vonage or Packet8 (Score:2)
I personally use Vonage, and have relied on it as my primary home phone for about a year and a half now. They recently dropped their price to about $30 a month, but you get a full featured service that compares to an advanced PBX system you'd
Re:Keep in mind the virtual numbers as well (Score:3, Insightful)
That's exactly why we are looking into Packet8/Vonage/etc. We need to have a local number that her office can call or transfer calls to without running up their bill. It looks like the ISP is pretty reliable, so that won't be a big issue (we hope, anyway).
Re:Which VOIP works with Asterisk PBX? (Score:3, Interesting)
How about this? Her work would give her a "desk" with an analog phone. You put an old Linux PC at the "desk" with a Digium [digium.com] FX0 card. You then have another PC at her home with with a VOIP phone jack [pcphoneline.com] or a headset [plantronics.com] with SIP software (like this Windows [xten.com] or this Linux [wirlab.net]) or run Asterisk on her home Linux box and run IAX between the two.
Reliability would depend on the reliability of the IP connection between home/w