Skype as Alternative to GV Set Up Help

[TonyTib]

@CheapSk86,

Yes, Localphone's web site is confusing and poorly organized.

Although some have had problems, I found it easy to setup Localphone - after you set up your Localphone account, go to My Account, press the Internet Phone icon, and you will find the information you need.  I used
proxy.localphone.com for Service Provider Proxy Service
5060 for Service Provide Proxy Server Port
5060 for Outbound Proxy Server Port
SIP ID from Localphone page for User Name
SIP Password from Localphone page for Password

I won't guarantee these are the best, but they've been working for me.

[azrobert]

Can you provide me a little more info (read the link) as to your experience (not just + | -) and how it works?

These companies receive a small fee to terminate tollfree calls. That's how they can provide this service for free. Some providers, like GV have difficulty connecting to some tollfree numbers, so I switched to this method years ago. I find the calls to be high quality and assume it's the same as their regular service.

Future Nine requires you to prepend ** to the tollfree number. You can do it this way:
{<**>(Mvg1):vg1},

I would encourage you to look at CircleNet. They are a new company and currently only provide outbound service. Their pricing for domestic calls is less than 1/2 cent per minute and I don't believe they charge for 800 numbers. I think they still give new users $2 credit to try their service.

[CheapSk86]

Thanks Azro and Tony for the pointers. I decided to give PhonePower a try and see how they do with the 30day guarantee they have.

At the same time, I am taking azro's suggestion and I have set up a toll free gateway using tf.callwithus. I did some math and found that, though I would hit 5000-8000 minutes a month, the majority of that is toll free to conference lines. Without the toll free, I am looking at lower than 300, if my math is correct. So, I went with the low minute, lower prices PhonePower plan for now to see how it is.

My company doesn't reimburse because it's not "required" to have a separate line, but because it is a dedicate office line, it's an instant tax write-off. If within a month, I find that I am not calling much that aren't toll free, and I am far less than the 300 PP has on their cheapest plan, I might go to a pay per call plan, but the fixed price makes it easier for tax purposes and expense management.

And I started really looking at PhonePower after looking through the headache that is LocalPhone's website and plan list. They should really try to find a way to clean that up. As a web developer it gave me a migraine.

Thanks again to everyone in this post that contributed. There is some great info on these forums.

[10acimport]

The Freetalk device I mentioned needs a computer for set up but it does not need a computer to run all the time. $39 from multiple sources.

Just bought mine from Freetalk . $39.99 and free shipping .
Goodbye OBi110

[giqcass]

Just bought mine from Freetalk . $39.99 and free shipping .
Goodbye OBi110

If you only need simple calling sure, goodbye Obi. It's best to keep it simple in that case.  If you want to use any of the advanced features Obi devices offer the Obi and Freetalk can be used together to create a really nice system.  The first thing that pops into my mind is the lack of 911 when using just the Freetalk device with Skype.  One advanced feature that the Obi110 can pull off is forwarding calls to an extension.  It's the only Obi device that can do that.

Let us know how you like Freetalk and Skype.