Cable questions....

My family is FINALLY GETTING CABLE :D Im getting a 2mb/sec connection. I cant wait, but I have a question. My parents were wondering if there was some way to do away with our regular dialup phone line and instead use like a cable phone kindof thing. What would I have to do or what kind of services would have to be offered for that to work?

If anyone has some helpfull information about this that would be awesome. :D Thanks guys..

Voice over IP is what you want to search for on Google... But from what I've heard it's not quite there yet...

The best way is to just use iChat... But not everyone has Macs unfortunately. ;)

My cable company [COX] allows you to run your phone service through them... contact your provider I guess....

The same people who made Kazaa have come out with a service called Skype. Its a lot like the other chat programs out there except it seems to be strictly for voice chat. The cool part is that you can leave messages (like an answering machine) if someone isn't there. I have heard that there are even some compaines out there who are making phones that you hook your ethernet (cat5 rj45 whatever) chord into it to use it as a regular phone. Another cool thing is that it is totally free no matter where you call. The only downside is that the person you call also has to have skype installed. I dunno if this is what you are looking for but it seems pretty cool.

http://skype.com/

Oooohhh, yeah.

I'd put something by the Kazaa people on my system.

iChat's pretty dang cool, eh Derek? Better audio quality than telephone. I see you on, but you've never answered my hail.

Thanks guys.... I'll look into contacting my privider more and see what they have to offer or what they recommend that I do. Just wanted to know what you guys had for options and whatnot. Thanks :D