Anyone use a skype / VOIP phone at home?

[jamin100]

Am thinking about ditching our landline phone in favor of a skype phone and using the skype in/out service.

 

Does anyone do this? Is it any good?

Edited June 18, 2010 by jamin100

[AngryTechnician]

I spent some time researching this a while ago but was unable to find a standalone Skype phone that was any good - many of those I looked at had poor reviews on Amazon. Of the ones that didn't, I tried an RTX one, only to find out it would consistently drop connection after a couple hours and need power cycling to get working again.

 

You can get plenty of cheap handsets that connect to a computer, but then you have to leave your PC on any time you might want to receive an incoming call.

 

What we did in the end was sign up with Vonage UK. You have to sign up to a contract but it starts at £6 a month which gives you unlimited calls to UK landlines and an incoming local number. You get an adaptor that sits between your router and your existing telephone, which is a surprisingly nice bit of kit that even has a web management interface. There's quite a few nice features thrown in too, ones we find particularly handy are having voicemail delivered as a .wav file to your email, and the anonymous call block so anyone who blocks their caller ID (think 'double glazing') can't call you. Call quality is very good, and it's been absolutely fault free. I literally haven't touched the thing since setting it up.