To my mind the main advantage of having voip is that it gives you a
second line - if you use Sipgate you get a number and can receive calls
with no cost. (You only have to pay if you want to make calls.) The voip
number can be undisclosed so you can avoid callers you don't want to
talk to as well.

As others have said, if you have particular people that you call and
that have broadband as well, then your calls can be free. If you have
an ATA (analogue telephone adapter) you PC doesn't even need
to be switched on.

The main catch for most people is that broadband comes down the same
line as your POTS (plan old telephone system) so if you loose your
landline you also loose voip. I'm lucky as my Internet is cable but my
landline is BT, so I will never loose both - hopefully.

Having said all that I saw something on uk.teleocm a few months ago
called
18185 which (for UK landline calls) costs 5p connection at any time -
and that's it. No matter how long you stay on line the call is free. I
know that is little different for evening and weekend calls on BT, but
it makes one heck of a difference for daytime calls. Their international
calls are also 4p connection and a few pence a minute. My wife has
called a sick friend in Belgium many times over the last couple of
months and the cost has never been more than 1p/min - occasionally
0.5p/min! www.18185.co.uk


--
Woody

harrogate three at ntlworld dot com

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