I got my installation kit for voice over IP for my home phone last night.  It's pretty awesome.  My home phone number doesn't get switched over until Friday, so I can only make out-going calls.  All incoming calls still go through the old system.

The hardware they sent is just a D-Link 1120M that's specialized for the service.  It's basically a single-port NAT firewall that you put between your cable/DSL-modem and the rest of your LAN infrastructure.  If you're serving external service like a web site (like this one) then you have to delve into the configuration (which sucks compared to my Linksys router) to allow incoming traffic to successfully traverse the “double-NAT”.  If the D-link had a DMZ option, it would be perfect, but it doesn't, so you have to forward ports on both routers. I plugged in an old phone and made a couple of calls last night, and there was absolutely no perceivable difference in operation between it and a regular phone line.  Not thinking, I rebooted the router while I was talking to my dad, which of course ended our conversation.  That was pretty funny.  It just completely slipped my mind that I was not on a regular phone line.

The service lets you do awesome stuff like:

• Unlimited long-distance
• Have your voice mail sent to you in an email, or check it via the web, or send alert emails to let you know you have voice mail
• Forward your calls to multiple locations and have them ring all at once, or in sequence
• Schedule “do not disturb time“ when your phone will not ring (with an exception process for emergencies)
• plus lots more I can't think of

And it costs much less than we've been paying for our home phone service.  This is starting to sound like a commercial, but I'm just excited about it.  If you're paying more than $40 for your home phone service, let me know and I'll send you a referral so we can both reap the rewards.