I recently had the opportunity to talk to Kris Reyes and Tony The Cameraperson from CityTV about VoIP:

To add some detail:

• I’m not normal. I don’t have a landline or a mobile. Big Canadian Telco’s are clueless when it comes to pricing this stuff.
• I have Skype at ~$36/year to make unlimited calls across North America. Annoyingly, Skype can’t receive calls (“SkypeIn“) in Canada, although people have been asking for it since at least 2006.
• I use Gizmo5 at $20/3 months to receive calls, in Skype’s stead. That basically gives me a “real phone number” in Toronto’s 416 area code.
• I can receive live calls if I’m running Gizmo5’s desktop application (similar to Skype’s desktop app), but I rarely do, unless the call is scheduled ahead of time. Usually, calls and texts go straight to my voicemail, and those voicemails are immediately emailed to me as attachments. I like isolating things to my inbox.
• At one time, I played with DIDWW, which offers a “real phone number forwarded to Skype” service. Voicemail didn’t work, which was a dealbreaker.

This isn’t for everyone, but if all you want is a phone, voicemail, and you don’t mind “living in software”, it’s the cheapest option I’ve found.

Recently snapped some shots of a storefront in my ‘hood claiming to offer “Full Service Web Development”:

And up close:

According to the awful type and clipart smeared across their window, they offer “website architecture”, “software development”, and “search engine marketing”. Yet something tells me they’re not the best choice for such services… and that something is their website. Consider yourself warned.