Phone

You can save tons of money on your landline every year with do-it-yourself VOIP. Just buy a VOIP box like the Obihai that costs less than 2 months of phone service. Once it is set up the monthly cost with a long distance plan is under $5. You can call anywhere in North America for a fraction of a penny per minute.

Major service providers have been selling VOIP for a while now, but charge an arm and a leg for it.

There are several independent VOIP providers who have been in business long enough to be reputable. They will handle porting your phone number and make the process painless. Then you just have adjust the settings of your VOIP box to work with the provider.

We have been using the system for about 3 years now and last year I switched my parents over. They haven't noticed any difference in their phone service (with the exception of e-911 but we'll talk about that later).

Things You'll Need

Obihai Phone Adapter. This plugs into your router and comes with an ethernet cable. It also needs to be plugged into the wall outlet. The third and final connection is into your standard phone cable. It will probably most convenient to mount this wherever the cable service comes into your house. The phone cable should be mounted on the same wall.

How-To-Geek has an excellent article about doing all of this including a comparison of the 3 different Obihai models (as of this writing).