Home telephony

I reckon that I’ll be a homeowner within the next year to 18 months or so thanks to the fact that my parents are leaving the family home to move to Sligo, what with both my parents establishing new businesses up the country. So I got to thinking… whats the first thing I’d change about the house?

Never mind getting in some digital TV, or wiring a server from the garage all the way around the house to distribute my music and video collection…. I’d rip out the house phone. Kiss goodbye to Chorus, or Eircom, or whoever I’m with at present. After looking at the price of Skype calls last week, it would make more sense to pay for a Skype in number and soak up the good value in calls – save your line rental, save your daytime/night time rates, phone anywhere you want for relatively cheap prices on the Skype out service.

Blueface
is one such company that’s already offering VOIP phone numbers in Ireland, offering you an 076 number for both business and residential use. Business use makes sense since I’m working in an online environment anyway so the broadband is a must, more recently, home life has become the same after a little bit of work at the weekend.

For as little as a fiver top up you can try their Pay As You Go service, and not only that, but you can take a ‘geographic’ phone number, giving you a local phone ID if you’re living in Waterford, Dublin, Cork, Galway, Limerick, Sligo or a few other spots. Might be handy having a good upstream rate coming out of the house (Chorus cable BB is better than Eircom’s BB at present) and surely something I’ll give consideration to.

Given that its a while down the line yet, you don’t know where it will be be technology and pricewise in 18 months. Check BlueFace if you want more details.

4 Comments

  1. Sean January 17, 2006 at 10:43 am

    Congrats on house ken.. And the skype sounds great!

  2. Ken January 17, 2006 at 10:45 am

    its a bit of a way off yet when you look at the timeline, but throwing in a skype line sounds like a decent idea in this day and age of cost cutting!

  3. Sean January 17, 2006 at 12:50 pm

    ah but it isnt that far away! 😀
    Yeah skype sounds brill!

  4. Ken January 17, 2006 at 12:55 pm

    It has its benefits anyway… the fact that its free is one of the better ones! Must get my hands on a webcam and see if I can try out the video phone stuff in the latest version.

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