« Return to: Internet Phones: Clear Winners
| Rank | INTERNET PHONE SERVICE | Equipment required, price | Payment plan 1 | International-call charges 2 | Setup/ ease of use/ audio quality | Comments |
| 1 | Best Buy Vonage  | Motorola VT1000; free | Unlimited local calls plus 500 long-distance (U.S. and Canada) minutes for $25 per month | 5 cents to $5.92 per minute | Easy/ Good/ Excellent | Top-notch audio, and great support Web site. Excellent printed documentation. Only Internet phone provider tested that offers access to 911 service. |
| 2 | Best Buy VoicePulse  | Sipura SPA-2000 phone adapter; $80 with $25 monthly plan (hardware is free with the $15 or $35 plans) | Unlimited U.S. calls for $25 per month | 3 cents to $5.08 per minute | Easy/ Good/ Excellent | Outstanding audio quality; easy to configure. Unit ships with one-sheet setup guide; would benefit from more troubleshooting advice. |
| 3 | Net2Phone | Max IP10 phone adapter; $200 | 1000 U.S. and international minutes (25 countries) for $25 per month | Included in calling plan | Very easy/ Good/ Good | Setup is a cinch because the phone and the adapter are combined into one unit. Good call quality generally, but choppy at times. |
| 4 | InternetTalker  | InternetTalker phone adapter; $99 | 600 U.S. minutes for $23 per month | 2.5 cents to $10.60 per minute | Easy/ Good/ Good | Adapter is easy to configure. Good audio quality overall. Bad news: Receives incoming calls only from other InternetTalker users. |
| 5 | Packet8 | Packet8 DTA-310 phone adapter; $75 for Freedom Plan (hardware is free with plans starting at $20 per month) | Unlimited calls to U.S. and Canada for $20 per month | Unlimited calls to Asia or Europe for $50 per month, or unlimited calls to both for $80 per month | Easy/ Good/ Fair | The DTA-310 is the only equipment we tested that includes a voice-mail message light. Audio is sometimes muffled or garbled. |
| 6 | Dialpad | Cisco ATA 186 phone adapter; $149 | 500 U.S. minutes for $10 per month (roughly 2 cents per minute) | 3 cents to $6 per minute | Easy/ Good/ Fair | Easy setup, but doesn't receive incoming calls. (Dialpad will launch a two-way Net phone by June.) Incoming voices were sometimes inaudible. |
| 7 | TalkPro U-120 | TalkPro U-120 USB-based handset (requires a PC); $140 | TalkPro-to-TalkPro calls are free; 3 cents per minute for calls to U.S. and Canada; no monthly fees | TalkPro-to-TalkPro calls are free; other calls are 4 cents to $6.17 per minute | Easy/ Good/ Fair | Only unit tested that needs a PC. Easy setup, but audio quality is hit or miss. Landline and cell phone users dial lots of numbers to call TalkPro users. |
| 8 | Earthphone | Earthphone 502 phone adapter; $450 | Earthphone-to-Earthphone calls are free; $25 per month (after 30 days) to call U.S. landline and cell phones | Earthphone-to-Earthphone calls are free; other international service should be available by press time. | Fair/ Poor/ Fair | Very expensive hardware. Tedious dialing procedure for landline and cell phone calls. During some calls, audio quality was uneven. |
1 Most Internet phone companies offer more than one calling plan; see the providers' Web sites for more details. The plans listed here are the comparable offerings from each company.
2 International calling plans--and the country codes available--vary across the board. Some Internet phone companies offer access to a limited number of country codes.