Chapter 4. hoosing Your Internet Phone Equipment

If you're like most people, you haven't thought about telephone equipment for your home for years. Cell phones you worry about, especially if you have teenagers who want the newest camera phones with text messaging and sexy covers, but not your home phone.

You may have bought a new home telephone in the last decade only when you needed to replace a unit dropped into the toilet or chewed by a new puppy. Thinking about new phone equipment may be more stressful than you want, honestly. After all, you bought a phone that shows the Caller ID information, what else do you need?

In most cases, with most types of broadband phone services, you don't need anything else. If you don't want to think about new phones, you don't really have to, except for one detail: extension phones. You may need to work around the problem of connecting extensions in rooms where you don't have network broadband connections available, so I'll talk about the new phone equipment you should investigate.

Those interested in computer-centric telephone service, however, will need to buy a headset for the best calling experience. And when you want a video phone, you'll need to go to the store (or online) yet again.