I have been using computers since I was 11 years old when my mother bought a used Commodore Vic 20 from a newspaper advertisement. Gawd, I can still remember plugging in the programs line by line from the computer magazing then saving them on audio cassette tapes. Previous to that I remember using the Commodore PET at the Computer Shop Of Calgary but didin't have one of my own. She couldn't afford the $300.00 or so it cost to buy it new but we were blessed with an amazing deal that allowed her to buy it for me. 24 years later I am thankful that I was introduced so early because tonight while listening to my daughter talk on the phone for the past two hours I realized just how much money I saved being a geek!
You see my daughter loves the phone. Like most 10 year old girls she found her love of the phone by talking to her cousin, who lives in Calgary where we came from. The four thousand kilometer journey takes her voice there and back in fractions of a second without a care. My daughter pays little attention to the technology that performs this amazing feat, and she certainly couldn't care less about how much it costs to talk for three hours at a time to her cousin.
Fortunately for me my geeky job brought me to a company that needed a VOIP system installed. It was here that I learned just how easy it was to actually deploy this technology. Their equipment cost them several thousands of dollars including all the wiring that was involved in setting it up from scratch. So I went home and started to do some thinking. Much to my surprise, all these fancy voip telephone systems are nothing more than a linux computer running some fancy software called "asterisk" the trick to having a cheap setup is to have a simple GUI to control the more complex PBX software itself. I found this software in a "FREE" form and couldn't be more pleased. There are a few free ones out there but this one could be set up by an ape so I was quite pleased since I am much like an ape myself.
If you are interested in setting up a system like this in your own home or small business you could drop me a line and I will do what I can to help you get started. It was as easy as building a computer out of old parts I had layin around, installing the PBX operating system on it, then buying an adapter by Linksys to integrate all the analog phones in my house. You can also purchase the more complicated feature rich IP phones for it but in a house why not use your regular telephones :)
So what does it cost me now?
Well my Bell line including the long distance we regularly received from Saskatchewan ran about 80 bucks per month. OUCH! the basic phone line without the long distance was around 30 bucks... OUCH!!!
Now with the new VOIP system, an initial cost of $10.00 to buy the phone number and then a monthly cost of $2.50 per month to maintain the phone number. The minutes are 2 cents per minute. so my daughter's three hour phone call costs me a whopping $3.60 My phone bill last month on voip was a whopping $11.36
That's in TOTAL, no other charges... what's included in this? well for starters I have FULL control over every service thinkable. call waiting, call forwarding etc. And because we still have the bell line integrated I will always have access to 911 dialing. Even if the bell line is disconnected they are required by law to still provide emergency 911 dialing. The voip company I use for purchasing minutes also has their own 911 service so either way I have two ways of getting help now. Additional features include "All phones" in my house are extensions now so I can call upstairs by dialing an internal extension etc... Valuable when you have a family of 6 living here we can communicate with each other easily...
More later, gotta check on dinner!
Turns out Dinner did not burn as my daughter had so veraciously warned me about but I have pretty much said all I need to say above... I will only add that you can take an IP phone or SOFTPHONE with you wherever you go and you can connect and make calls from your private PBX... Amazing technology and it's about time that the old ideas of telephony change...
Cheers!!!
BTW. Mom's doin' better today! I think she'll be ready for her appointments at the hospital on Tuesday! HOORAY!
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