[Discuss] SIP (voip) providers in Canada.

[Alan W. Irwin]

On 2007-07-27 17:04-0700 Scott Petersen wrote:

> I have been using peopleline (peopleline.net) very happily for about 1.5
> years now for local calling. It is $9/mo for unlimited local calling. I do
> not use them for long distance. I have it hooked up via sip to my asterisk
> box.

Our current situation is we just have an ordinary phone (no cell phone), and
we rarely use long distance, but still the costs are high compared to
$9/month quoted above.  Thus, Scott, I would appreciate some more background
material on how asterisk interacts with all the various services out there
and what hardware is needed.  (If this background information is already
assembled somewhere, a link to it would be great.)

Part of my confusion is there are so many different options.  For example,
there is an option (I assume) to connect your computer (running asterisk)
with the local phone line in your residence, but I assume that would require
extra hardware, and you are still stuck with a large (considering the
service that is provided) monthly bill for that local phone line.  Or I
could give up on using that local phone line altogether and make all
connections via the internet and pay somebody else to connect to the
traditional phone system (either local or long-distance or both).  Or
various combinations of the options.

Also, I would appreciate some comment on practicalities like 911 service, up
time, audio quality, do you still get a listing in the white pages, etc.

Alan
__________________________
Alan W. Irwin

Astronomical research affiliation with Department of Physics and Astronomy,
University of Victoria (astrowww.phys.uvic.ca).

Programming affiliations with the FreeEOS equation-of-state implementation
for stellar interiors (freeeos.sf.net); PLplot scientific plotting software
package (plplot.org); the libLASi project (unifont.org/lasi); the Loads of
Linux Links project (loll.sf.net); and the Linux Brochure Project
(lbproject.sf.net).
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Linux-powered Science
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