I would suggest Free World Dialup (http://www.freeworlddialup.com/), which has an Inter-Asterisk Exchange gateway (i.e., when mdlbear manages to get Asterisk set up and connected to the network, you can call me on my FWD number -- ain't standards great?).
This is the time in VoIP technology where everyone's got ideas, and ways to communicate -- and every hacker's throwing up their hands in glee, trying to get things to work.
(Think about it: FWD provides 'presence' notification. If you have an Asterisk PBX answering your POTS line, it can see whether your FWD number is online -- if it is, it forwards it; if it's not, it goes to voicemail on your home Linux box. Or something. :))
I don't like Skype because of the peer-to-peer nature of its calls -- it uses your outgoing bandwidth like bittorrent does (read its Terms of Service) to serve other calls, as part of your service to the network.
Eh.
This is the time in VoIP technology where everyone's got ideas, and ways to communicate -- and every hacker's throwing up their hands in glee, trying to get things to work.
(Think about it: FWD provides 'presence' notification. If you have an Asterisk PBX answering your POTS line, it can see whether your FWD number is online -- if it is, it forwards it; if it's not, it goes to voicemail on your home Linux box. Or something. :))
I don't like Skype because of the peer-to-peer nature of its calls -- it uses your outgoing bandwidth like bittorrent does (read its Terms of Service) to serve other calls, as part of your service to the network.