atcomsystems.ca/forum Forums General General Telephone & Systems Information Inexpensive VoIP services for a second residential line

Can anyone recommend one of the cheap VoIP services available that I can use as a second telephone line in my home (such as Ooma or Magic Jack)?

I have 75/75 Internet service from FiOS, and I am looking to use this just as a secondary voice line. I currently have Vonage for my second line, but it is too expensive to keep at $38 per month. I want something using a stand alone device that does not require being connected to a PC to operate the service.

Thanks...Lou

Magic Jack is still around ...

https://www.magicjack.com/index.html

I switched from Vonage to voipo.com about 2 years ago and have been quite happy. I don't recommend this for commercial use--only for residential.

I moved my business line, and soon residential line, to Phone Power. They have a special of $14.08 per month for a year or you can pay $200 plus some change for a 2-year signup. It delivers 2 paths for the $14.08. www.phonepower.com gets you there.

I use CallCentric. www.callcentric.com

They have an extensive selection of phone numbers and plans. I pay $31.95 a month for my business phone number and my regular home phone number, with two circuits each. I choose the CPE. I use a two port Linksys ATA connected to a Universal Trunk Card on my Option 11 PBX, but you can use whatever you like, so long as it works in SIP protocol. The Linksys ATAs are available for around $50 or less on eBay and elsewhere.

Happy to help you choose if needed.

Good luck!

Scott

I have a couple of OOMA's that work really well. Each line is just under 4 bucks a month. One was bought brand new as a Christmas gift to me, the other is about 5 years old that I recently bought off craigslist. Both work perfectly, and the previous owner of my used one sat down with me and we switched the billing info over to me so I avoided the re-activation fee. Other than the goofy musical dial tone, they work flawlessly. Any voip device is going to have some degree of lag, and the lag on both of mine is minimal. I often forward my cell phone to one of them when I'm home and no one ever realizes I'm not on my cell phone until I put them on hold and they hear music. They are both used as CO lines on my partner system and 1A2 system. The only downside to OOMA is the upfront cost of the device, but that quickly pays for itself when your phone bill is less than a pack of cigarettes. They give you 5000 minutes a month anywhere in the US. To some people this is an issue, when I broke it down, that's like 3 hours a day on the phone.... Who uses that much on a house phone?

I hate to bring up my little kludge system, but...

I actually have IncrediblePBX running on a Raspberry PI, with an IPComms SIP trunk and Google Voice. It has an old Linksys/Sipura SPA-921 deskset that came out of an old office, and I have Zoiper on my iPhone as a second extension over WIFI.
Inbound calls hit the IPComms trunk, which is $0 for inbound, and outbound calls use Google Voice, which is $0 for outbound.

I did spend $35 for the PI.

Thanks for the replies. Any one of these looks like a good alternative, so I'll have to figure out which one works best for me and switch over.

I've never had a problem with Vonage, but they are just too expensive at this point. I wish I could go back to my copper POTS line...

Sorry to chime in late but I'm new here. I use a NetTalk Duo which you can buy for about 10 bucks on Amazon and service is about $35 per YEAR with US calling. I've occasional problems but I submitted trouble tickets and it's been quite stable for some time now. Not recommended for business but fine as a resi line and handles fax without issues. It plugs into a router port so no PC needed. They have a wifi version as well. They also have an android app that will let you use the service from your cell phone including incoming calls so you don't have to take the duo with you when traveling.