Date: 2011may13 Keywords: Canada, VOIP Q. What are some Canadian VOIP (Voice over IP) options? A. With a box called an ATA you can plugin a regular phone and use it with VOIP. You'll need a SIP provider. Here, from cheapest to less cheap, are some:

http://www.vbuzzer.com/calling_plans.php $ 4.50, $30 porting fee http://www.italkbb.ca/enc/enc_plans.asp $ 9 http://acanac.ca $10 http://yak.ca $14 http://primus.ca $22 http://rogers.ca $26.50 http://vonage.ca $30

More providers: http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Cheapest+ATAs+and+Service#Canada ATA stands for Analog Telephone adapter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_telephone_adapter SIP is Session Initiation Protocol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Session_Initiation_Protocol Usually you get many calling features and unlimited US/Canada long distance. If you have DSL you'll need to cancel your phone service and pay for a "dry loop". The fee depends on your connection speed. Seems to be $5-$25 a month. ATA boxes are sold new by many of the above SIP providers for about $75. They seem to use about 3 watts so won't hurt your electronic bill much. You can find them for about $35 on eBay. Just see what model your SIP provider is selling and search for that on eBay. Then there is the MagicJack. It seems to have lots of problems. The biggest problem for me is that you need to have your computer on the receive calls. And there is a program running all the time. And it takes up a USB port with its flimsy jack. So why not use a software phone and a VOIP service. Or get an ATA (mentioned above) if you want to use a real phone. Its very low cost, however. Speaking of softphones there is Skype, Google Voice, VBuzzer, Fring and many others. More info http://www.moneyville.ca/blog/post/990736--7-alternatives-to-a-landline-phone