Bravo engin!

We've only just started using it, and we're already anticipating the savings and fun of the Engin phone company. 10c telephone calls to anywhere in Australia, flat rate. Telstra is apparently lifting its best plan from $1.50 caps to $2.00 caps for STD calls. On Engin you pay just 10c no matter how long the call! All you need is a voicebox (VOIP is the technical term, as in "voice over internet protocol") which costs about $130 AUD. You plug the voicebox into your modem or router, then your home phone into the voicebox instead of the wall, install the software and install the settings as prescribed by Engin and... you're away.

Another beauty of VOIP is that if you miss a call, the answering machine message is recorded by your VOIP provider (eg Engin) and then e-mailed to a nominated e-mail address as an audio file. So from work, home etc you can "check your messages".

You'll need ADSL (we use Adam internet with "ADSL2") for VOIP with, I suggest, a better than 200Mb download limit but for most Australians decent ADSL is increasingly the norm - especially in metropolitan areas. I must admit it wasn't simple for us to get our Engin situation set up (due mainly to Telstra line fault issues) but I believe it will get easier. Look out Telstra and Optus - just say "no" to them and "yes" to VOIP.
This is not cash for comment. I promise :)

... aside from VOIP, the beauty of a decent internet connection is the opportunity to regularly video chat with Mum and Dad and, ultimately, friends overseas (or simple voice calls - ie non-video, just like a phone call, but on your PC - using Skype).

It's all enough to send Nanna and Poppa into a spin at the world we live in! I recall the "science fiction" in Astroboy cartoons where Dr Elephant would scream out at Astroboy down the video phone and sometimes his nose would be poking out of the screen. We don't have that yet, but we're getting there ...