Skip Skype, Vonage: Get VoIP for Next to Nothing

It's still an open question whether Vonage (VG) will ever make it into the black. But one thing isn't in doubt.

The well-financed telecom venture, which has spent nearly $700 million in the last few years flooding the airwaves with commercials, has brought Internet telephony into the mainstream.

Even a couple of years ago, few people had heard of Voice over Internet Protocol, or VoIP, and the technology was still in its early stages. Voice quality wasn't great.

These days it's getting easier and easier to drop the phone company like a bad and expensive habit -- which, of course, it is.

If you have an Internet connection at home, you can use it to make phone calls and save a bundle.

And you don't even have to pay Vonage $26 a month to do it.

The simplest route is to set up VoIP on your computer at home. But who wants to sit in front of their computer all the time while they're on the phone? And if someone calls when your PC is off, or offline, you miss the call.

If you want to use a normal phone, you can buy one configured for Skype, eBay's(EBAY) popular VoIP service. It's certainly a better option than doing nothing.

But it does have some downsides. Skype isn't the cheapest service. You may not want to spend $150 buying a new "Skype" phone. And if you do, you're stuck using it with Skype -- to change to a new VoIP provider you'll need a new phone.

So I explored the independent route. It was much easier than I expected.