The pulse of Alexander Interactive

The phone is a Phillips VOIP 841. It feels nice and compact for a home phone. The base system is the base station, a small black box, which plugs into your router, and a handset. I purchased the base system, plus an additional handset. I paid $149.99 for the base unit and the first handset, and an additional $92.84 for the additional handset.

Setup is simple: the first handset comes pre-registered with the base station, but the second handset I had to register manually. Registration essentially consists of following the instructions on the handset, and pressing the big button on the top of the base station.

The phones are fully functioning Skype clients. When you start it up for the first time, it offers you the choice of either logging into an existing Skype account, or creating a new one. I logged into an existing account, and that was pretty much the end of set up.

The system is actually designed to work with both a skype account and a regular old analog phone line simultaneously. Why you would want to keep the analog line once you set this up is beyond me, but there it is.

Making a phone call is essentially dialing a number and pressing “Go”. (The phone dials like a cell phone – there’s no dial tone). When you do this it will ask you whether you want to place the call via Skype Out or the analog line, and thats it.

Have a look at my previous post for the whole set up – you need Skype Out or Skype Unlimited to place calls via Skype to an analog line.

Additionally, like any other Skype client, you can place calls to Skype accounts – no Skype Out required. One of the soft keys on the front of the phone defaults to “contacts” – which gets you to the list of Skype contacts for that account.

Some things that are cool:

• The handsets have a cradle for recharging, and the cradles have a power cord. Other than that, however, there’s no cable from the handsets. That makes it really easy to place them wherever you want throughout your house or apartment without needing to think about running phone cable.
• There’s no reason you can’t have the phones and a Skype software client running on your computer use the same account. That means if you’re away from home, you can pick up your calls as normal – through your computer. No need to forward your calls – just take them with you!

So, eternally frustrated by mediocre to terrible phone service, I’ve long been looking for a way to use Skype for my home phone service. Unfortunately up until recently, all Skype phones required the use of an attached computer, making the whole concept way to geeky to be feasible.

However, at some recent point, Philips came out with a snazzy phone that acts as a Skype client with no computer necessary. You get this little black box that you plug into your router, and the associated handsets register with the box. The whole thing signs up with your Skype account, and bam: you have a working Skype phone.

I’ve signed up with two Skype services to complete the picture – SkypeIn, which gets me a telephone number that people can call from their last-century phone system, and Skype Unlimited, which gets me the ability to place unlimited local or long distance calls to anywhere in North America.

My phone bill for the next year will total about $90. I am stoked. Every time I make a call I feel like I’m getting to stick it to the man.

I’ll continue to report here as I settle into the service, warts and all.