Skip Skype, Vonage: Get VoIP for Next to Nothing

The next step just involves lifting the handset and dialing phone numbers to make calls. We're online.

Savings? It will vary from household to household but for us it's about $50 a month, or $600 a year. (Bank those savings for 30 years you'll end up with about $50,000.)

Some thoughts.

Right now the VoIP industry is set up for techies and geeks. It's nowhere near as easy and consumer-friendly as it should be, and could be. You'd think the likes of Cisco would be making it easy as possible for other people to do what I just did.

The question is going to be what happens to the old-fashioned telephony companies when VoIP gets there.

The issue isn't just residential telephony, either. A few months ago, on the train back to Boston from New York, I got talking to a businessman. He had sold one technology start-up and was now running another. He explained that his new company had just moved into a new office building west of Boston.

In the old days, they would have had to pay Ma Bell plenty to install and run lots of phone lines. Today? A large aerial on the roof provides a super-broadband WiMax Internet connection... and then they just set up VoIP phones throughout the building as they needed them. The cost is pennies on the dollar.

Great news for all of us. Not so great for the phone companies.

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