GoFrugal.ca

The internet has revolutionized the telephone industry, taking per-minute fees and throwing them out the window. With voice over IP (VoIP), or what many cable companies are simply calling digital phone, you can get a fully-featured phone line with a long distance package, for less than the cost of a traditional phone line.

I won’t go into much detail here, but VoIP technology transmits phone calls over the internet using a high-speed connection. You still have a traditional telephone handset, telephone number, and can call anyone just as you would with a regular telephone line. Just instead of plugging your phone into a telephone jack, you plug it into a little device, that plugs into your internet connection.

(Only downside is that when the power or the internet goes out, you’re without a telephone. But that doesn’t happen enough to bother me.)

I first starting using digital phone in September 2006 when I got a Cogeco bundle in Ontario. Cogeco offers a high-speed internet and digital phone bundle for $90 per month: $45 for internet, $45 for phone. That phone service includes call display, voice mail, call waiting visual call waiting and call forwarding, plus unlimited long distance in Canada and the continental US. Goodbye long distance charges.

The whole thing was dirt simple to use. You get one little box from Cogeco that combines your high-speed modem with the VoIP box. One end plugs into your cable connection, the other end has a connection for your computer, and a connection for your telephone. The box even has an 8-hour battery backup so you can use your phone if the power goes out.

When I moved to Quebec, Cogeco where Cogeco didn’t service, I was left to find a new solution. I looked into Vidéotron, which also offers a digital phone service, but they price it like a traditional phone line. Basic line is $17 per month, plus $10 for the phone features, and long distance plans are extra. Total waste of money.

That’s how I signed up for Vonage. I initially got their unlimited package for $40 per month. Similar deal to Cogeco where you get all the phone features and unlimited long distance included in that price. Vonage one-ups it by including free calls to certain European countries in their unlimited plan.

I was on that plan for a few months until I realized I don’t make that many long distance calls. Vonage offers a plan with 500 minutes of free long distance for $20 per month. That’s more than enough for me, and you can’t beat that price. (I don’t get free calls to Europe with this plan, but I didn’t use that anyway.) You can barely get basic phone from Bell for that price.

Having digital phone and internet from two companies complicates things a little, because that means 2 bills and two boxes to plug in, plus a jungle of wires, but Vonage come with great instructions for figuring all that out.

So please, stop wasting money on a traditional phone line, and get digital. For $20 including voicemail and long distance, you can’t go wrong.