VOIP

[jronald]

Magic Jack, Vonage, Ooma?
The only feature Im trying to preserve is a 20 year old phone number. Not really interested in anything else.

Ron

[RealBlackStuff]

My wife had a shop with a MagicJack phone. Worked like a charm.
She closed the shop and the MJ account about 4 years ago, but she still gets occasional telephone-messages via email.
And the number is still 'alive'.

MJ is great for taking abroad as well.
When you use the MJ in e.g. France to call another MJ in e.g. USA, the calls are free!
You still have to pay your annual fee of about $39.

We have a daughter who lives in Switzerland.
Her husband gave us a SIP phone (with a Swiss tel. number) about 20 12 years ago.
So when we call each other, it's just a 'local' call, from anywhere (even from USA) to Switzerland.
Best of all, it costs us less than $10 per year.

And if you go with ONsip, it's even completely free.
(they started much later than SIPcall, otherwise we might have taken them).

[elray]

Magic Jack, Vonage, Ooma?
The only feature Im trying to preserve is a 20 year old phone number. Not really interested in anything else.

Ron

Port-in to Google Voice.
Non-recurring cost: $20 if immediately portable, about $40 if you have to port it first through a cellphone carrier (Tmobile prepaid), then to GV.
(Weird rules about what and where is a "landline")

Once on GV, you can either forward incoming calls to any phone, or voice apps, or use voicemail feature that can be sent as email attachment.

http://www.obihai.com/porttutorial