For a long time I’ve been trying to use Skype as a replacement for my cell phone, which gets crappy service in my apartment. SkypeOut sounds like a great idea, but in practice it was unusable. People on the other end of the line always complained that I was too quiet, and the voice would drop out so much it was unusable.
In contrast, Gizmo works perfectly. I don’t even remember where it comes from, but gizmo is a very nice GTK2 app that provides features very similar to skype. Call-out, call-in, all that good stuff. The real difference comes in actually using it. Gizmo worked perfectly the first time, and I was able to call out right away with near-perfect fidelity. I actually had to turn the mic down a little!
I’m probably not going to get a phone number for it, even though it has 617 numbers, because it’s really difficult to make sure the PC is always ready to take a phone call. But, it will be very useful for dialling out to order delivery, call work, call my parents, or what have you.
If your friends have cell phones (and likely free long-distance), they can program dialing an access number, 2 pauses, 1 (to access the SIPphone network),, a pause, and then your SIP number. The call will be routed to Gizmo. The access numbers are free to use and since it's a SIP call by the time it reaches you, you don't have to pay anything extra either.