When AT&T decided to back out of its residential, I decided to start seeking alternatives. After all, if they didn't want me as a customer I certainly didn't want them as my local and long distance provider. I'd previously dropped SBC (then Southwestern Bell) as my local provider once AT&T started offering local service in my area, so I knew enough not to go back to SBC. The other bells, and the new upstarts, all seemed equally unappealing.

Last month I decided to give Voice over IP (VOIP) and opened an account with Vonage. VOIP works by converting an audio signal into a digital stream (just like a CD or a DVD) and transmitting it over my broadband Internet connection instead of over a POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) line. I have dialtone, caller id, call forwarding, and every other feature you can imagine. I played around with the service for a few weeks and then started the process to have my home telephone number moved from AT&T to Vonage, a process called Local Number Portability (LNP). The process took a little longer than I'd anticipated but, as of Friday afternoon, I'm no longer an AT&T customer and my traditional POTS line is dead.

Now, Vonage is certainly far from perfect. From time to time I'll hear a strange echo, but I had that from time to time with AT&T. There's an occasional "lag", which reminds me of the overseas calls we'd make 25 years ago, but I'm told they're working on that problem. Of course, I'm dependant on my internet connection, but should it go down Vonage will automatically forward calls to my cellphone. AT&T couldn't do that. Of course, the old POTS service wasn't affected by power outages, but my cordless phones were, so no change there.

By far the biggest change is cost. My monthly AT&T bill was right around $56, of which 26% of that was taxes and fees. Vonage only costs $17 a month with 12% of that taxes and fees. For those doing the math, that's an annual savings of $475. Not bad.

A NASA spacecraft will blast off next week on a mission to blow a chunk out of a comet that may provide clues to the origin of the solar system.

The Deep Impact probe is scheduled to be launched from Cape Canaveral in Florida on January 12. When the $260 million craft reaches the comet Tempel 1 on July 4, Bruce Willis will lead a team of West Texas roughnecks to set nuclear bombs deep in the comet's core. Upon detonation, the resulting fragments should help scientists determine what happened to Ben Affleck’s career.

Morgan Freeman was unavailable for comment.