How The Phonegnome Box Works
Phonegnome calls its box 'revolutionary'. This is so because it adheres to the new fashion on device-based VoIP whereby the box is the center point of free communicate through traditional phone, thereby avoiding the inconvenience of requiring a computer, and at the same time eliminating the headache of monthly fees. So, how does it work?
You simply have to buy the box and plug it to your home phone line on one side and your Internet connection on the other. You register for free and get a number, which you use to make and receive calls through the box. You can still use your landline phone line any time you want, and non-free calls are automatically channeled through the latter.
What Does It Cost And What Is Free?
The box costs $100 as of the time I am writing this. Free calls can be made only to Phonegnome users, i.e. those who use the Phonegnome box or any other PhoneGnome VoIP service. Now this is the catch, because the amount of totally free calls you will be able to make through this box (we are speaking about eliminating monthly bills, right?) will depend heavily on how many of your contacts out there are Phonegnome subscribers. It will work well if you have a very specific and short list of contacts, to whom you communicate often and lengthily.If you make calls for non-Phonegnome-users, long distance or international calls, then it costs a little money. The flat rate starts at $15, which offers you unlimited calls to any type of phone throught the US and Canada. If you only have the box with no subscription (and of course no monthly bills due) to that plan, all non-free calls through you box will be channelled automatically to your landline phone, which is more expensive than the $15 flat rate. Add $7 dollars to that and you can make international calls to a limited list of countries. You also have a Pay As You Go plan where you pay only when you make calls at $2.41 per minute.
Features
There are a number of free features that come along with the box, like- voicemail to email;
- e911;
- Basic features like call forwarding, three-way calling, call transfer etc.;
- Can be used with many common VoIP platforms like SIP, ATAs etc.;
- Free calls to Gtalk, MSN, and Yahoo! IM users;
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and some others.
