VoIP cleans out POTS

Time to say ‘hello’ to a computer phone?

Several years ago, in my ongoing crusade to save money, I bought an Aplio. In fact, I bought two. One for me, and one for my mother-in-law, who lives in Turkey. The idea behind the Aplio — a little black box about half the size of a shoe box — was that by plugging it into my phone and my Internet connection, I could call my M.I.L., as I call her, for nothing.

Well, it was a little more complicated than that. She had to punch in a special set of numbers, and I had to do the same. We both had to arrange to be at home when we called. And since we had to use a dial-up connection to the Internet, the transmission quality was questionable. Sometimes it just disappeared, or had this weird echo.

By Tom Regan, The Christian Science Monitor

Full Story: http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2006-01-17-voip-vs-pots_x.htm