My Rant:
Many years ago I decided I had enough of paying a ton of money to phone companies and being told what to do. You have to be quite old to remember things like the phone company renting you a phone and you could not add your own. Then when we could add phones, they charged you for each phone you had in the house. When they added touchtone capability, you paid a premium to be able t ouse it. The money supposedly went to upgrade their equipment, yet they already had upgraded because that is how the touchtone was working in the first place. Those fees went on for decades. The changeover to digital switching cut their costs tremendously.
Rant kinda ends here.
When I found VOIP services, I embraced them. I first used Packet8 and cut costs considerably. Then here in Hawaii was able to get a 808 area code by using 808netFone, another Voip provider. Hawaii is one of those places that is difficult to get numbers in and
Voip.Ms considers area code 808 an international number :-)
Google Voice allowed me to have a number where my Mom lived so she could call a local number and reach me 1/4 way around the world. She felt that I didn't live so far away.
I played around with Asterisk but didn't want to run yet another computer because our electric rates here are astronomical.
Enter the Obi 110 and then the Obi 202. I enjoy running them and reconfiguring them and connecting them to my new RaspberryPi.
I have recommended the Obi's for neighbors and friends and blogged about them. The Obi's with GoogleVoice are a great idea to let them save money. Many want to get off their local phone companies and not have to pay $300 a year or more just to make local calls. Adding a low cost Voip provider lets them have more options than they ever had before.
While I don't rely solely on Obi's, they are an important part of my communications needs and my toy box :-)
