YGingras^.net

Scams, there are quite a few of those around us. Overpriced products and services sold with misleading descriptions, the scams that appeal to the child inside us who wants to believe in miracle and magic, the scams that we fall for just because we are used to fall for them.

Telephone companies are really good at selling the later kind. As an example, they sell a voice mail service for 7$ a month, which I paid for during several years without hesitation. Hey, that thing is much better than an answering machine, and it never breaks. These days, you can get an answering machine for 20$; it contains only solid state components, which makes it unlikely that will break, and it will gladly let you retrieve your messages remotely over the phone. At that price, answering machines have 10 times the capacity of the voice mail service offered by the phone company.

My mother saw through the voice-mail scam long before me; her answering machine gave her many years of good service but eventually it failed and she asked me to find her a good deal for a new one on the Internet. I was looking at the new models and I was delighted by the features: maybe it would be better if I gave her mine and offered myself an upgrade.

However, looking at all the specs what I saw was tiny computer missing many of the features that I had with our phone system at work, Asterisk. Even at home, I've been a voice over IP user for the past few months. At first, I used voice over IP only for outbound calls, in fact, only for long distance calls because is was a lot cheaper. Then I became addicted to the convenience. I can dial using my electronic address book, I now have as many lines as I want, and I can do conference calls. The answering machine episode was enough to convince me to do the big switch: to ditch my phone company entirely.

I do major savings: I can pay by the minute with no monthly fee. Typically, you pre-pay 10$ to 20$ worth of talk time with a SIP provider and they debit your account as you make calls. No engagement, no long term contracts. Since it's so easy to pick a new provider, competition is fierce and prices are really low: on average, 0.5¢ to 2¢ a minute for calls to most locations in North America. Some provider are cheaper in some location so you can keep a pool of active accounts and always pick the best fit for your destination. I do most of my calls with Future Nine: their website is most ugly but they have great prices and good voice quality.

For the software part, I use Twinkle, a Free Software SIP phone that makes it easy to dial with the same address book at I use with my mail program, KMail. There are many other SIP phones out there for most platforms, including the ipod-touch. A 20$ headset offers good voice quality and is a lot more comfortable than the average phone receiver.

In order to receive calls, I needed an incoming SIP enabled phone number. For as low as 5$ per month, I can get a phone number in the Montreal area. I typically do less that 2$ worth of calls during a month so would save a lot compared to the 25$ that the phone company asks for. But I can save even more since I can get free incoming phone numbers for a few areas of the United States. IP Kall gives away numbers in the Washington area for free and redirects incoming calls to a SIP provider of your choice. Conveniently enough, you can change the SIP provider as often as you want when you run out of minutes. Now I can answer my phone where ever I am as long as I have access to the Internet. I don't need to check my voice-mail anymore since new messages are sent to me by email as soon as they are recorded.

The traditional phone system have been with us for several decades now and it is perceived as a must have mean of communication. It is so ubiquitous that we never challenge it but the truth is that this is just another scam that we fall for just because we are so used to fall for it. I'm glad I finally found a way out. By the way, my new phone number is 360-519-5682.