After
today's revelations about widespread, privacy- and law-violating collaboration between major telecom companies and the NSA, I'm ready to drop my phone provider, Verizon, like a hot potato.
Unfortunately, Qwest, the one phone company that refused to go along with the NSA, doesn't service my part of the country (New York). So I'm thinking about taking the plunge into the world of VOIP (Voice Over Internet Protocol).
I have cable internet service, so I'm sure I have the necessary connectivity. But I know nothing about the VOIP marketplace, and next to nothing about the practicalities of using VOIP on an everyday basis.
Questions for Kossacks in the know:
- Is VOIP a viable substitute for both local and long distance phone service over conventional land lines? My wife and I both have cell phones, but we get poor reception where we live, and sometimes calls are dropped or hard to hear. We would need the local component to make giving up our land line really attractive.
- Do we know how much VOIP fall within the NSA's sphere of surveillance? Is it even technically feasible for them to do it? Since my whole reason for switching is a principled objection to warrantless government surveillance of my private conversations, I'd like to know that I'm actually going to regain my privacy by doing this.
- Who are the best VOIP providers out there? I'm interested in recommendations based on personal experience.
- What about services like voicemail, caller ID, caller ID blocking, etc.? Are these even available over VOIP networks? (I know that 911 service is not available -- we can use the cell phones for that.)
Any help that the Kos hive-mind can provide is greatly appreciated...