My [out-of-country] telephone service here in Mexico is with an OOMA box, and in the two years I've lived here it has saved me thousands of dollars in phone charges. It is rock-solid-reliable and the voice quality is as good as any POTS phone I've used. (It helps to have a good quality telephone connected to the OOMA box). If you are unfamiliar with OOMA, in a nutshell it connects to the internet on one side and a regular telephone on the other and through some kind of magic the telephone believes it is (in my case) in California. No charges of any kind for phone calls anywhere in North America; minimal fees (around three cents a minute) apply for overseas calls.

It would be marginally useful if I could use my computer to send faxes (I'd probably do that half a dozen times a year) but from what I understand faxes and digital phone lines don't co-exist very well.

Windows Vista has built-in fax software, but right up front they say it works with analog phone lines only. As few faxes as I'm likely to send, I don't want to spend money on this idea.

Do I have any simple, free options for sending faxes from my computer via my VOIP phone?

tanstaafl.