Bell Rip Off, VOIP, cheapest Phone

So I am sick of Bell, somehow it costs a fortune, the internet works erratically and finally I will do something about them. I have figured out cheapest solution and unpicked the geek speak so you don't have to.

My plan is to get internet and cable tv only through VDN . Then I will run a VOIP phone from the internet. This will work out at about $58 per month.

So far I have got as far as trialling the VOIP phone. If it runs trouble free for a month then no more Bell.

So the deal with the phone is you register at VOIP.ms . This is fairly painless but it is not very user friendly, but worth it.... Once you register you get a username and some password stuff, you also need to know the IP address of the montreal server which is on their webpage but nowhere blindingly obvious, it is 67.205.74.164 for montreal.
the you deposit funds by credit card.
To use it by computer you just download a free phone program like this one (X-lite). You enter your VOIP account details and off you go, you can make calls.
You can get a montreal phone number for $2 a month. You get free voicemail and lots of nice features. The X-lite phone can record conversations too. If you want to call 911 then that costs $1.50 a month. In short Voip.ms is pretty high powered and very customizable and cheap. The price you pay is some head scratching, but the customer support by web chat is pretty good and available most of the time, they talked me through some setup questions..

That's all fine, but what you really want is a real telephone, not to be sat at the computer to make a phonecall.

Well then you need an adaptor. I bought a thing called HandyTone 486 by ebay for about $42. In fact I went to the seller direct and picked it up. Saved waiting and post charges...

It worked fine at work but I had some bother getting it to work on my Bell-Sympatico Speedstream Modem. I fixed this by following these instructions.
You need the bell account name b1xxxxx and password.


So I have a $15 Dollarama phone hooked up to my modem and it works a treat...So far so good. I have switched modem on and off a few times, everything still works..Get voicemails sent to my email...

Soon I will check out VDN and disconnect from Bell.....hooray!The X lite phone is pretty good and cheaper than Skype, voice quality with VOIP.ms blows skype out the water...plus you can upgrade call quality for really important calls if you want...Like I said tons of features...
You can buy local international numbers in UK etc, not done it, but could be handy...

Electronic Fax and Message service

The best I found was
Maxemail

For $24 I got a phone number in Chicago with fax and voicemail for a year. You can personalise the greeting and the fax header.
Support reply quickly and at weekends.
Faxes are sent as pdf and voicemail as wav and you can email files to fax numbers
You can include a few email addresses so you can share the account. Plus you can have all messages saved for a year, (costs extra).
In short it's good.