We switched over our phone providers when we moved.

Here’s how it looks so far:

Utah:

Local - Qwest - $45 per month
LD/Intl - AT&T - $75 per month
DSL - Covad - $130 per month

Washington:

DSL - Covad - $130 per month
VOIP - Vonage - $30 per month

Most of our phone service was international to the UK - we made very few local or long distance calls. Now with Vonage we’re getting those as part of our plan.

The other big saving is in killing the local service. I got Covad with naked DSL (also known as a dry line) - so there’s no dial tone on the phone - just data.

The wireless network is re-configured and running.

Finally I got the wireless network, IPsec and wi-fi security configured to let authorised laptops be part of the private backbone. No more uploading photos to the NAS server only when docked!

I had to swap out the old wireless router – an old Netgear – it would randomly drop DHCP offer packets from the backbone to the bridged wireless network. Even the online docs from Netgear say it’s problematic.

I upgraded to a new 802.11n router – works perfectly and gives great throughput.

The old Netgear is now the guest, non-backbone access network. Wireless access for guests and family without letting them loose on the backbone.