Wow, I just tried voipstunt.com, the VoIP provider that offers free PC to phone services (limited to regular landlines from about 30 countries). The sound quality dialed from my home phone to China is so much better than my previous phone card service! The free call area include US, China, Hongkong, Taiwan, Canada. It is perfect for people like me who cannot just simply ditch my phone companies yet. If interested, check its website.
BTW, it is SIP compatible, so you can buy any analog phone adaper (such as Linksys PAP2, free after rebate from CompUsa or $40 on ebay) to make phone calls from your regular phone, just tried it on my PAP2, worked perfect, if you want to see how to configure it, click here
February 12th, 2006
Jim spreaded the word that ITalkBB is the best alternative phone service to replace regular phone service, so we gave it some serious investigation to find out the cost benefits to switch 
it turns out it is not the best option for us (yet). On the other hand, we found vBuzzer is the best in terms of quality and cost comparing to the rest.
Our ISP is Bellsouth DSL (extreme service is $37.95 for 3MB), which req a min of local phone service $16, plus all misc fees our phone bill is $67. We cannot subscribe DSL without a local phone number (it sucks, but understandable). Now for our long distance calling, we need to add a VoIP service, consider the Pay-as-yougo pricing for calling to China is 1cent(vBuzzer) 2 cent (iTalkBB) 2.1 cent(skype), vBuzzer is the clear winner.
What about quality and feature?
Quality:tried the 10 trial vBuzzer mins to call my parents’ home phone (in China), the quality is darn good. Used skype before, the connection to calling China sounds not very stable. According to Jim, iTalkBB quality is good.
Local phone number:It gives out free Canadian phone number (Toronto area code), and you can get US area code ($2/month). Similar feature from iTalkBB, $5 for any US area code phone number and a China universal phone number (no free stuff though). Skype offer local phone number 30 euro for 12 month.
Voice mail:the voice message left to your free vBuzzer phone number is sent to your email (mp3) so you can listen to them on your computer/iPod.
Compatible with analog phone: for all SIP compatible service (such as bVuzzer), you can use analog phone adatper to make/recceive call from your normal phone, or you can use any SIP compatible soft phones.
The switch to cable internet doesn’t sound good to me, I don’t like the idea of sharing internet bandwidth with my neighbours, and its cost is not very attractive, the High Speed Internet + digital cable packge + $25 iTalkBB is well above $67, and we don’t really watch TV that much, so I guess we will stay with BS for now until the better/cheaper solution comes out..
February 12th, 2006