MagicJack

Well, I picked up this little thing called a Magic Jack the other day, and so far, despite the other negative reviews that I'm seeing out there on the Net, I actually like it! I bought it because I have a really nice Polycom speakerphone that had been sitting in the box gathering dust ever since I moved and dispensed with a landline, and for a total cost of $40, even if it didn't work, no great loss. There are some pretty serious drawbacks, though:

• No Linux support (not a deal-breaker for me, as long as it support an Intel-based Mac, which it does)
• Your computer has to be on, it's essentially a USB ATA I think (again, no big deal for me, could be a deal-breaker for some)
  
• The software is not the best in the world - it pops up in the middle of what you're doing anytime you make or receive a call (not a biggie for me, since I rarely actively use my Mac for anything, I mostly use my Fedora box)
• When you sign up, they try to upsell you on a number of things (a vanity number for $10, 5 years of service, prepayment for international calling, etc)
  

However, in spite of these drawbacks, there are a lot of good things about it as well:

• You plug any analog phone into it, and it works just like the phone did before - it's so simple that your Grandma could use it :)
• Call quality is good to excellent - I've only had a few issues with it
• So long as you have Internet access, you can take your phone with you - there's even a softphone if you want to dispense with the analog phone attachment and just use a USB headset. This is most important if you're traveling internationally, you can take a US phone with you.
• Speaking of international, all calls to Canada are free with magicJack (they're billable by most cell phone carriers). If you pre-pay, there are also low international calling rates as well.

In spite of the name, there's nothing magic about the magicJack either. It's just a standard SIP phone with this little piece of hardware. It appears to me that they're using Asterisk in at least some capacity, since the voicemail appears to be straight Asterisk. The unfortunate thing is the requirement to use their software, however, there are hacks out there on the Internet for obtaining the SIP credentials and just using it as a straight SIP trunk into Asterisk. I've not done this, because I actually like the hardware they make you use :)