We have had Vonage at home for about three and half years and have been reasonably happy with them. We mainly had two issues, one was that we would be out of phone service during extended power/internet outages and two was that international calls frequently did not go through (when they would connect fine with other providers). I figured we had been with them long enough and it was time for a change, I had been reading up on PhoneGnome lately and it seemed quite interesting.

PhoneGnome is a customized analog terminal adapter (the Sipura SPA-3000) that connects to the internet and an existing phone line. The existing phone line is used to receive calls, dial 911 calls and as a backup during power/internet outages. PhoneGnome can be configured to receive voicemails and send them to email as a .wav file and dial out using any SIP VoIP provider.

I have a choice of Verizon or Cox for local analog phone service, I chose to go with Verizon because it gives me some redundancy (my internet is with Cox) and the wire is buried underground, Cox is strung up on poles and cuts through some trees to get to my house. Verizon has an economy messaging plan that gives you basic dial tone and free incoming calls for $5.50 a month and charges 9.6¢ per outbound call. Caller ID was an extra $7 a month and call waiting $4. I schedule my number to be ported from Verizon on Monday, July 10th.

I ordered PhoneGnome + SoftGnome package for $119.00. SoftGnome allow you to receive and place calls from soft client on your PC anywhere you have an internet connection.

Verizon came a day late on Monday, July 11th to install the phone line, but said there was a problem with the main cable on the street and they would come back another day. A few days later I found out that our number must have ported because we weren’t receiving calls on Vonage, Verizon didn’t leave any notice that they were done with the install (some things never change).

We had a visiting bishop in town so it was a few days before I could connect everything up and check what was going on. Our line with Verizon was active and I connected it to the PhoneGnome box. I connected the PhoneGnome box to our internal wiring.

I could receive calls now, but PhoneGnome would not complete its initial self-configuration process. I emailed their tech support and tried to call, but you cannot reach them directly, you have to leave a message (a little annoying). I got an email response half an hour later to submit a form online detailing the problem. I did so and got a response about an hour later saying that I need to enable stateful pinholes enabled on my Cisco Pix. I did a little research and found that all I had to do was add “fixup protocol sip 5060″ to the configuration. I checked the configuration and found that it was already there.

I decided to bypass the PIX and connnect PhoneGnome directly to my cable modem. I still couldn’t connect, so I emailed PhoneGnome tech support back. Tech support requested that I leave it connected directly to the cable modem and contact them. So this morning, I tried again and this time it worked. Once the initial self-configuration process completed, I put PhoneGnome back behind the PIX and it still worked.

I logged into PhoneGnome’s portal and enable basic voicemail to email and setup an outbound VoIP provider. I picked one of their existing options, VocalNet Gold Flate Rate Service, they are $14.99 for unlimited calling in the US and Canada. I may play with using SIPphone with their 1¢/min calling later on.

So far the combination is working great, Caller ID is passing correctly in both directions and call quality is good. This may be a good option for those who want to have the benefits of VoIP without losing the advantages of the PSTN. PhoneGnome also supports Iotum, a very slick call screening service.

Once I get my Verizon bill, I will do an exact price comparison with Vonage, including taxes and all. I will also post a follow up review once we have been using the service for a while.