anyone have this voice-over telephone technology problem?

[mr bill]

What I see as a problem with Ooma, Vonage and similar is that you need to buy their 'device' which is simply a locked ATA [Analog Telephone Adapter]

Ooma
Item Description Ooma Telo? Price $179.99

Vonage seems to be giving the Vonage Box away for "free" but you end up paying for it over and over again
Vonage World? $9.99/mo.? for 3 months then $25.99/mo.? plus taxes and fees with 1-year agreement2

These companies are basically selling a standard ATA loaded with their own proprietary software. Change companies? then you need another box.

You buy a genereic Cisco/Linksys PAP2 for around $30 on Amazon or EBay
and then use any VOIP provider's cost per minute rate. The PAP2 is a 2 line unit so you can have two different VOIP services running at the same time

These 'name brand' services are more or less like the old AOL - you end up paying too much for something very simple.