said by nickz :

I've had very good luck with Vonage. (I've been with them nearly a year and they are my main phone line now with cell for backup.) Other people here had problems and didn't like them. You'll get a lot of opinions here. My opinion for your first question: yes.

The best way to set up multiple phones is whatever works for you. Both of your suggestions have been used by people here. I went the route of hooking into my house wiring so I could use all the existing phones I already had. Others like the cordless base stations which are great if you want to spend the money.

You seem like you already did your home work here based on your questions. My only other advice would be that if you plan on getting rid of POTS and going VoIP-only, have cell phones for backup when the power/cable goes out.

said by newguy2005 :

If you only have one PC, I believe the TA will send one line to your PC and one to your phone. You will only need a router if you have more than one PC.

said by nickz :

Oh and I just thought of one other suggestion: If you go Vonage and decide to port your number to them don't fax in the authorization form until you are sure that VoIP is going to work for you. This way your VoIP line will have the same number (and caller ID) as your POTS line for outgoing calls. (Only incoming calls from other Vonage users will actually ring your Vonage line at this point--you can give out the temporary virtual number to people so you can test incoming call quality.) If you decide you don't like Vonage and want to try another provider or stick with POTS, all you need to do is cancel and your original phone number will still be routed to your POTS line. Fax them the transfer authorization only after you are satisfied.

said by markwp2001 :

I probably wasn't clear with my question. I currently have a single desktop computer hooked up to a cable modem, no router. If I add the VOIP adapter, still NO router, can I use the phone AND have an active internet connection to surf at the same time? Would there be an advantage to adding a router to that setup?

said by nickz :

A quick check shows VoicePulse and Packet8 are both available to you. (Broadvoice and AT&T are not, BVD's web site wasn't responding, and Sunrocket makes you enter an exchange so I couldn't check.) There are probably others available to you as well.