Google Voice??

Have never tried it but all my friends use Vonage

I've used google voice for over a year.

Downside: You can't port your current number, you'll have to get a "google" number. Also, if you live in a small city or smaller area, you may not be able to get a number that is "local" to your area code. Early on, I had problems with dropped calls and the recording feature turning on automatically...kind of irritating.

Upside: Beyond what others mentioned, you can set your voicemail based on your contacts. So, if you want a "special" voicemail message for friends or a particular person, you can record one and set it for that contact and on the flip side, you can set a contact to be sent directly to voicemail, if you don't want to talk to them. It also works for using it personally and professionally...one number for everyone. You just need to make sure your contacts in google are up to date and set up. You can "preview" your callers with the announcing feature, where the caller has to identify themselves before you actually pick up the call. You can schedule times for the number to ring at your home versus on your cell, during different days of the week...so as an example, from 8-5 it can be set to ring your cell and then from 5pm - 8 am ring your home. If you have an iPhone or Android phone, they both have an app that you can download which makes the functionality of it even better. If you have a blog or website, there are widgets available so people can call you directly from their computer from your website.

I use it for my business, routed to my cell phone. I have the number in my cell phone as "xxx business" so that I know someone is calling about scheduling a catering, rather than a personal call. I love it.

We use it to call family overseas and also to call friends and relatives in the U.S. and Canada. It works much better than the calling cards we've purchased in the past for overseas calls and the connection on both overseas and U.S. long distance calls is clear.

When you put in the number you want to dial it calls your phone (landline, cell, whatever number you choose) and then rings the person you are calling. On international calls it will tell you the cent per minute rate along with your balance, on U.S. and Canadian calls it just dials through like a normal phone call.

I've also used the Google Voice number to give to people that I don't want to give my "real" number to, they dial that number and I can either forward them to voicemail if I choose to do so or my phone will ring just like a normal call.

I really haven't run across anything negative about it aside from the fact that one night, really late at night, we were getting calls from someone that was apparently dialing our number to reach someone else, but that could happen with any phone service. The plus side to having that happen with Google Voice is that you can go into your account and block that person from being able to call you.

I have Google Voice and I love it. I can text from my laptop screen. I can listen to messages right from my computer screen. It's awesome.

Enjoy,

A.