I left it this late in the discussion, because it's almost OT and likewise very difficult[1] to get to Australia.
I'm using something called Vonage http://www.vonage.com/ They got profiled in The Economist a few months back, and I subsequently saw some guy at a conference plugged in using it, so I learned it wasn't vapourware. Their VoIP system is very locked in, their servers, their hardware, etc etc, but they do one thing which is awesome - they are fully plugged into the Public Switched Telephone Network, and have [American] FCC approval to operate. What's awesome is that they have divorced the ide of area-code and location. So, in North American terms, I can have a 646 [New York] phone number, but be sitting in Colorado. Or Montreal. Or Sydney. They recently got a bank of Toronto numbers [so have an access tandem there at least], so have almost crossed the how-do-we-operate-internationally barrier. Are they coming to Oz? Doubt it anytime soon, but if they pulled off one international, then more international can't be far behind. [1] Unfortunately, at time of writing they only deliver to US mailing addresses. So, I had to use a friends US domestic address to receive the thing, then have them post it onwards. Real pain. Vonage know people do this, and while they dont [technical,billing] support it, they do realize lots of their customers are doing it and seem to be steadily moving the direction of this working. AfC Who is 646-472-5054 in New York [USA], and 416-848-6072 in Toronto [Canada] which all rings on line 2 of his phone in his office in Sydney, which is connected to Vonage's little [Motorola] VoIP box sitting on the floor, which is just one node on my SOHO network, uplink is ADSL. -- Andrew Frederick Cowie Operational Dynamics Consulting Pty Ltd Australia: +61 2 9977 6866 North America: +1 646 472 5054 http://www.operationaldynamics.com/ -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html