I'm looking for input on US VOIP providers. I've been talking to phonebooth.com and looks like a viable option. I will need a system that will allow at least 3 incoming lines and all the usual extras.

I am a big fan of Broadvoice and Cordia.

I have SIP trunks from both providers going to an Asterisk-based server. I use Cisco 7960 phones to connect to the server (one at home, one at the office). I also use a softphone on my laptop to connect to the server when on the road. The 7960 can connect directly to a SIP trunk without an intermediate server - Broadvoice supports this very well under their Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) plans.

Cordia allows non-US numbers. I have a +86 number through them. All of my US +1 numbers are through Broadvoice (they even had some 212's, which no other VOIP providers seemed to have).

I have had good service from Lingo (www.lingo.com), not sure about their multi-line capabilities. If you are interested, PM me and I will send you a referral, which gives both parties a $25 credit.

Ooma and Vonage also are part of the usual suspects.

I'd post my questions over at dslreports.com. They have an active voip forum with lots of small business users.

I'm very happy with Voicepulse wholesale if you are looking to run your own PBX server, such as Asterisk. You get four channels (lines) per number and unlimited incoming calls. They also have residential plans for use with ATA devices and softphones. www.voicepulse.com

Are we looking at business or home use? What percentage of your calls will be incoming vs outgoing, local/long-distance/international? How big of a factor is cost vs customer service, etc etc.

Looking for business use. 3 lines, pretty much 50/50 incoming versus outgoing. Customer service over price, but price is important. Most calls are either local or over toll free lines.

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A related question -- when people talk about VOIP here, I think they mostly mean a telephone that hooks up to your internet connection and dials out for cheap.

Do any companies offer what I have been looking for when I mean VOIP -- a phone system where I can have one phone extension sitting at home in the US, and another phone extension overseas, hooked up where my parents are (and moves with them wherever they're traveling) ? So I can always dial them with a simple 7 digit number for example? Or even 1 digit... And talking to them for free, basically?

Do any of you know of such a solution available at the consumer level? I guess this is sort of enterprise level technology which probably involves dedicated servers, but I think there must be something like it for consumers.

Thanks!

Skype really is the best solution for your scenario, in talking to your parents, etc.

Magic Jack has also been mentioned, but the experience has been YMMV...

Thanks for the suggestion -- I'm pretty familiar with Skype and Magicjack. But these both require a computer to be plugged in (although this is a close approximation of what I'm looking for.

I just wonder if there's something of the quality of corporate VOIP systems (voice quality, portability, and ease of use in dialing "internal" extensions) but made for the consumer..

voip.ms and callcentric.com would allow you to do what you want. There is also pbxes.com.

Checkout http://www.dslreports.com/forum/voip for extensive discussion.

I've used Viatalk with 2 lines until I switched to basic VOIP/prepaid combo. I was happy with their service and pricing at that time.

Using voip.ms for both personal and client use - only started using them since 01/01/2010, but have heavy usage and have been very happy. Looked at and tried a handful of other providers as well, this was the best of the bunch

Using it with both direct SIP endpoints (Linksys ATA devices) and with IP phone switches.

Current evaluating Level 3 for a corporate environment, they are selling direct to enterprises now, they used to only sell wholesale or had 11 million minutes/month minimums.