Anyone use skype only for a homephone?

[episodic]

Since I can get dry loop dsl with no ring tone, I was thinking of saving some money with 'just' using skype. I have a prepaid cell phone I can dial 911 from if I need to.

Thoughts? Ideas, etc?

 

[Juno]

idk, my bff jill?

 

[1sikbITCH]

I use a Magic Jack as my home phone. I would have no home phone at all except we can't get cellphone reception in the house.

It works well enough for $40 the first year and #20 a year afterwards. I have found that if I reboot the computer, I have to unplug it and plug it back in to get it working right again. It doesn't load right when booting up with the computer.

 

[huberm]

i did it for a year or so. I'm not sure what it was, but I didn't really care for it and only used it sparingly, favoring my cell phone.

what i do recommend if you go this route is to get a phone that is independent of your computer. I got a Linksys CIT400 and it worked great. In fact, I was thinking of selling it if you're interested.

 

[Q]

I read title 3 times and thought it said homepage.

Srry for not adding anything at all to this thread

 

[McCarthy]

Originally posted by: episodic
Since I can get dry loop dsl with no ring tone, I was thinking of saving some money with 'just' using skype. I have a prepaid cell phone I can dial 911 from if I need to.

Thoughts? Ideas, etc?

Dry loop? Is that the same as naked DSL? If so, I prefer the latter term.

Depends how much you need a phone and how tolerant your friends/family are to your phone shenanigans. The answer is in your usage.

 

[chusteczka]

I have had the skype home phone as my only personal phone for 1.5 years now. There is no other home phone since I live alone and I have never owned a cell phone. The total cost for skype incoming and outgoing calls is $60 for one year. There is also a monthly fee that adds up to a little more, if you prefer to go by month. Here are a few things that I have noticed.

• Excellent records of all calls are kept in the history list.
• It is very easy to call someone back, even if they do not leave their number. All I do is double click on that call's history notification and an outgoing call is made.
• Incoming calls for people on the contact list are immediately identified.
• Outgoing calls are listed as unknown on recipient's caller id. Few people answer my calls since they think I am a telemarketer, so I usually leave a message and they call me back.
• Sound quality is excellent for computer to computer calls.
• my Skype to their phone: I can hear the other person well. Sometimes the other person can barely hear me even though my microphone is properly setup. It seems my outgoing signal quality drops when processed by their phone.
• Calls cannot be received when the computer is not running. However, the "answering machine" / caller history will still take a message and provide this to me the next time I login to skype.
• When I am watching a movie on my computer, an incoming call will freeze the whole computer for a few noticeable seconds before skype notifies me of the incoming call.
• I often use headphones and a webcam microphone to eliminate feedback, so the other party does not have to listen to themselves speak.
• I have received no telemarketer calls in the past 1.5 years I have used skype. Again, outside of my work/office telephone, this skype phone is the only phone that I have.

I am very happy with this skype phone. It suits my needs for being available when others want to call me while I make few outgoing phone calls. People used to look at me weird when I told them that I do not have a phone. Now, I give my number only if I wish to and tell people I do not want calling me that I do not have a phone.

This is all I can think of for now. Hopefully this was useful.

 

[Pabster]

I've used Skype extensively for years now.

I have a pair of Linksys CIT400 phones as well as a few USB speakerphones and what not which all work great with it.

It isn't my "main" phone, nor my only phone, but I do use it a fair amount. You can't beat the price and the quality often rivals or surpasses POTS in my opinion.

 

[Fenixgoon]

where's rossman? he uses skype for his phone services, IIRC.

 

[SunnyD]

Skype + Philips VOIP644 + GrandCentral + Prepaid AT&T Cellphone for the last 6 months. No complaints here. The only catch you may have is getting a "local" phone number from Skype - which is why I use GrandCentral.

One other thing to note, some places won't take your call or even ring through because the Skype out calls show up on caller ID as a weird number (Private - 0123456789) - for some automated systems, they just can't cope (had this with JetBlue a couple weeks ago, couldn't get through from home, but worked fine at work).