Vonage IP phone in Australia?

[auzee_bujji]

In USA we have vonage IP phone service, where they give a piece of hardware that we can hook to Internet and use any standard land line phones to call unlimited anywhere in the World just for flat 40 USD per month.

Is there similar service in Australia as well?

[twister292]

There are some, but since Vodafone and Optus turned up the heat on them in call rates, they've been reduced to niche market players.

[jb12]

Originally Posted by auzee_bujji

In USA we have vonage IP phone service, where they give a piece of hardware that we can hook to Internet and use any standard land line phones to call unlimited anywhere in the World just for flat 40 USD per month.

Is there similar service in Australia as well?

If you are currently living in the US, I would recommend purchasing magicjack. You can purchase it either online at their website magicjack.com or at your local Radio Shack store. I believe the original magicjack is about $40. You don't pay a monthly payment. But you do pay a renewal fee. Check out the website. The last time I had checked awhile back it was around $19.99/year. So if you are in Australia, you can call the US and Canada unlimited. You should have internet access that has a good speed for the quality to be the best. It's just a little usb equipment with one end going into your computer. While the other end has a phone jack for your phone to enter. They recently launched MagicJack plus which doesn't require your computer to always be on. I believe it just goes directly to your router but is priced around maybe $20-$30 higher. However, this is probably will help you save electricity in not always having your computer on all day and your phone will ring.

My family and I given this to relatives that currently live outside the US. To renew the yearly subscription, just need a credit card and done online.

I would recommend magicjack if you are calling the US and Canada. But if you need to call other countries for unlimited, then vonage would be the way to go.

I believe you can take your vonage equipment to Australia or any other country. It's all through the internet. However, your phone number would still be the US. We also had use vonage using it this way. But since calls were only needed to be made to the US, we changed to magic jack to save money. Example, $480 to $40 if just calling to the US.

The only issue I can see is when you pay the monthly fee or the yearly fee, your US CC might not match your new address in Australia? I would recommend calling/emailing both services to ask how it works if you move overseas?