Wherever I go, there I work (and play)

Dave, great topic here. Having lived abroad for the last 5 years, voice over internet has been on my radar for a long time. I've been a Skype user since the early days, I've paid extra for inbound and outbound calls, and the whole nine yards. I know many swear by it... I've gotta be honest though, I've found Skype connection to be finikey quite often, and every time I've decided to sit down and buy a physical voip skype-phone like the one you mentioned... well, they all seemed to be categorized by high price tags and low Amazon ratings.

After I went to full time with FamilyChristianMovies.com, the need to be available by phone increased significantly. Picture me dragging my laptop, cable and headphones out to the balcony from the home office so that my newborn doesn't wake up to me talking to my computer microphone in the middle of the night...not exactly professional.

Finally we decided to go with Vonage. I know it's a little higher priced than Skype, but honestly, it just seems like a lot more stable system to me. The Vonage box hooks up to a normal phone and to my router. It rings just like a normal home phone at my home in Turkey. Clients and vendors don't even know that I'm 8 time zones away when they're talking to me. I've been using it for 4 months and have been very happy. It has all the features you mentioned (call forwarding, voicemail delivered to e-mail as sound files, etc).

When I'm stateside, I just forward calls to my US mobile, and if I'm here for a long time, I can set up the box. No biggie. I should mention that all of my missionary friends have tried skype and prefer vonage as well.

If you're an Anywhereman planning to set up a long-term remote office, I recommend Vonage over Skype.

Great feedback, Jake! In general I've heard a lot of negative things about Vonage (well, Skype too), but it sounds like it's working great for you. That is good to know, and maybe even especially for those working overseas like you.

Like I mentioned to Joel, I originally had a direct to PC connection with Skype but didn't love the performance and was convinced it wouldn't work for my business. However, after reading numerous positive reviews on the Philips VOIP8411, I decided to give it a try. At the time the phone only cost $110 and Skype only costs me something like $2.95/month, so it was a relatively low-cost, low-risk place to start. It worked well right away, but it REALLY worked well after upgrading my router to a brand new Netgear setup. I'm not IT guy but it seems like there was some sort of "packets" setting I tweaked that really stepped up my Skype performance.

Had the Skype/VOIP8411 setup not worked, Vonage was the next logical step. It will be interesting to see how Google Voice shakes things up. I've also heard that Vonage is really deep in debt right now due to their heavy marketing campaigns and some sort of lawsuits. Skype...Vonage...Google Voice...we'll see who comes out on top! Am I leaving any other service out?

daveyank I am pretty much the same as you. I didn't want to hand out my mobile to everyone. I found Skype to be the best route as well. It was much cheaper than my local voip service and I can take Skype anywhere I go. Another nice feature with Skype is when I am not at my desk I can forward the calls to my mobile if I want to.

I just have a headset to plug into my laptop. Some day I'll probably get a phone like you have.

Thanks for sharing, Joel. Glad Skype is working for what you need. Yeah the phone is great. I tried the direct headset setup briefly and didn't love it, but for some folks it works really well. Every factor makes a difference, such as pc/mac, router, connection speed, etc.

Dave,
First I want to acknowledge the very cool Noitworld sticker on your bulletin board. Thanks for the promo. Secondly our Phone setup with Noitworld is basic at this point. Sean and I just use our Mobile phones along with Skype. I'm hopeful that Google will make their new service available in our area shorlty. I would love to give it a try. Once things take off for us here at Noitworld I'm sure our needs will require a much more sophisticated setup. Happy 4th.

Gotta show that love for Noitworld! :-) I think the Google Voice service, when it allows users to port an existing number, will totally change my phone setup. From what I've done with it so far, it's incredible. The voicemail to text feature is great, and the option to change which phones ring when the main number is dialed means you'll be accessible whether here, there, or "Anywhere." Big time stuff.

The only thing that scares me is that Google will then have all my phone records in addition to all the gazillions of things they know about me. What happens if they get in financial trouble and the government decides to buy them out? Look out! ;-)