Choosing My Internet telephone Provider

I am moving in the near future and have a decision to make with regard to my home telephone.

I'm not interested in only using a cell phone. Cell phones are great. I manage to stay within my minutes and my wireless ear piece makes life easy. I don't know how good my reception is in my new place and my ear feels funny (slightly painful) after wearing the ear piece for a while. Its not the cartilage though, its something on the inside. Either way, my home phone has never made the inside of my ear hurt.

This will be a careful selection. I don't want the packaged 3-in-1 service offered by cable companies, nor do I want the same fate of SunRocket customers, with the company I choose closing abruptly. To help with my search, I've created a list of criteria I will consider when making my choice. I invite you to comment if you have VoIP tips or any other suggestions (no, this is not an invite to spam). My list goes as follows:

4 - Recommendation - Personal recommendation. Gonna talk to some friends. Do any of my even friends use VoIP?


3 - Promotions - Are they offering any discount, free or significantly discounted hardware? Free is always the right price.

2 - Feedback - I want to see what customers have said, good and bad. Negative comments stand out more than positive comments. The existence of complaints and unhappy customers doesn't bother me. Its impossible to please everyone and some people are quite unreasonable. I am interested in how consistent and widespread complaints are. That should tell me something about the company.

1 - Feel - Do I like the site? Its a technology company after all. Does it run like a legitimate business? Does the company have good ideas? An example of a non-phone related company with a really bad idea is Starbucks. Do you ever wonder who at Starbucks was cocky enough to think its a good idea to have store across the street from each other? I surely do...because it makes no sense. As expensive as is it to invest in the hardware / backbone necessary to run an Internet telephone service, I want to make sure the company I choose will be around.

Wish me consistently clear calls.