Check out Vonage.com. Voice over IP on your existing broadband connection. You choose the area code you want, so you can have a NYC number here in minneapolis. $19.95 a month with 500 mins long distance, and only $39.95 a month for *unlimited* long distance. A guy I work with got it a couple of weeks ago and said it rocks. Plus, one of the area codes available is a NYC cellular area code. NY has strict laws that prohibit telemarking to cell phones, so most telemarketing firms remove numbers with this area code from their lists. They send out a Cisco ATA-186 box for you that you just plug into your network, and plug into your phone network (after disconnecting the telco drop first). Open port 5060/UDP on your firewall so you can receive incoming calls, and you're all set. I used one of these boxes last year when I was beta testing the FreeWorldDialup project (which seems to have disappeared, but I still have the box :). These things work sweet. I talked to another beta tester who was on a satellite link in austrailia with 300-500ms latencies, and you couldn't even tell. Sounded like we were on a normal landline. No skips or drops in sound either. That amount of latency may seem like a lot, but if you have two cellphones and call one from the other and put them up to both ears and talk into one, you'll see that the latency is almost a full second. (nice run on sentence huh?) I think I might dump my line at home for this thing. I'm sick of figuring out long distance charges for my 3 roomies, and our phone bill is like $80 a month now anyway. Jay