Cheap? Try free!

Our Ooma box has saved us literally thousands of dollars in the six months we have been in Mexico. Well, not really, because if we had been paying the piratical international call rates, we wouldn't have made all those hour-long phone calls to friends in Florida, California, Alaska, and all points North.

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On the unlikely chance that someone here doesn't know about Ooma, it is a box that with internet access (just access, a cable modem or DSL line, no computer required) connects to your ordinary telephone and gives you VOIP access to any telephone in the world. Calls are free to the country that hosts your phone number (you can port your existing number to Ooma) and are inexpensive to other countries (example: China 2.5 cents a minute, United Kingdom 1.9 cents a minute). Sound quality is excellent, far superior to Vonage or Skype, and is indistinguishable to my ear from POTS. In operation it is absolutely transparent, you pick up your phone and dial (or answer it when it rings) and that's it.
[/plug]

tanstaafl.