How to ditch the telephone system and save money:

We use Skype to make and receive all of our phone calls. Skype is a voice over IP (VoIP) system that you can run on your home computer. It works by transmitting your voice over the public internet before reconnecting to another Skype user or a normal telephone. If you haven't taken a look at Skype because you still wanted to have a phone number, or you thought you needed to sit at your computer to make calls, it's time to think again. With the right gear, you can have unlimited calling for pennies a day on your regular cordless phone.

Follow up:

I run Skype on a laptop that I leave on 24X7. I have it configured so that I just close the screen and let it run with minimal power consumption when I am not here (the difference isn't huge, but it draws about 40 watts running with the screen off).

Skype unlimited calling to US & Canada landlines and cell phones costs $2.95/month whether you have an actual Skype phone number or not [Skype Subscription Plans] . You can call out by typing the phone number into the Skype interface on the computer, or you can pick up the phone and dial out (you do have to dial a complete world phone number, so to call a US number I would dial 001-areacode-number*. The 001 is the country code, the * sends the number to the Skype application. Skype keeps records of your calls and contacts on the computer so you really don't have to bother much with numbers you call a lot.

I also have a Skype phone number so people can call me from any phone and not just a computer. You even get to select what local exchange you want the number to be; it doesn't have to be your actual local exchange. It looks like the Skype number costs $30 a year now when you have a monthly calling subscription (the $2.95 one for example). That brings the total cost to $65.40 for 12 months unlimited calling.

The adapter I use to connect my regular off the shelf cordless phone system to the laptop is the D-Link DPH-50U (Newegg) which you can get for under $20. This adapter also connects to a regular land line and switches depending on how you dial out or who calls in.

D-Link DPH-50U [note: no Linux drivers available]

The D-Link adapter passes calls through to the phone which has an answering machine on it and records messages from missed calls. Skype also has it's own built in voice mail system if I didn't have this. Theirs is actually pretty nice, you can get the messages either from any phone or on the computer. I don't know if Skype sends callerID information, often the phone does tell me the number that is calling, but I am not sure if this is because it is entered in as one of my contacts.

I pay Skype directly through Paypal so I never have to write a check or give them a credit card. So far the call quality has been excellent 95% of the time, with very few dropped calls. It isn't perfect though, calls do drop rarely and sometimes there is a bit of echo. This has been my experience with our T-Mobile WiFi cell phones as well, so this probably isn't a Skype issue but more an issue with wireless VOIP calling in general. All in all I am very happy with the system.

Before we used this, we paid about $45 a month to Verizon for unlimited US calling. After we realized we made about 1-3 hours worth of calls a month, we carefully pruned the Verizon land line service to what turned out to be the bare minimum $24 a month ($288/year). Now with the FCC minimum line charge increasing another $2 a month, and Verizon charging us $4 a month because we *weren't* making enough long distance calls, we just canceled it entirely.

For most purposes, it is a viable solution. If the rare echo or dropped call is important, I still wouldn't use this (or any WiFi or VOIP) as a sole voice calling solution however.

Be aware, you are also giving up 911 service by using this. I would recommend placing the modem and router on a battery backup and adding the police and fire numbers into your contact list as well as the phone speed dial. I use a 450VA UPS on this equipment and that was sufficient to power the modem and router for 90 minutes after a power failure.

The Wiki of the Week is actually "Ma Bell", the AT&T monopoly that provided telephone service in the United States from 1877 to 1984. Things weren't so bad under the Bell system in truth. Back then, phone service was reliable and cheap. After the monopoly was broken up it got much worse, but hey! we were free to choose any long distance company we wanted. Thankfully we've got the internet now and it's the new "Ma Bell".