I recently decided I needed a phone line for my office, and just a cellphone wasn't enough anymore. VOIP is the first thing to think of, if you are working as an independant consultant or freelancer. Being kind of a techie, I have already spent hours in researching all current options when it comes to VOIP solution for the home office.
As my wife is originally from Africa, we make a lot of international phone calls from our home phone. A couple of months back we decided to get a voip enabled phone (Siemens c450i) you connect to the phone line and your internet line. Then you register yourself with a VOIP provider of your choice (often based on price) and there you go. Nu monthly fees, and very, very good rates. The problem with the provider of our choice however is that they don't give you a phonenumber you can be reached on. So I looked a little further and found another provider that does. But I didn't want to loose the better rates form the other provider. How do you solve this ? You need VOIP router to do that. The one in the picture is the one I got. It'll connect to your phone line and your internet line. You can hook up any phone to it so you need no new hardware. My Siemens has become pointless unfrotunately.
The real power of voip routers is in the dial plans. You can set the box up to receive calls on your landline and one or more voip numbers, and have the calls ring on any phone you like. But more interesting, you can set the box up to route your outgoing calls through the voip provider of your choice automatically, which you base on the rates of course. Least cost routing, it's called officially.
What about cost ? It's a joke. The router costs only 75 Euro's which is nothing compared to the capabilities it offers. And don't forget, you don't just have a cheap line, your calls are cheaper too.