Is Roll-Your-Own-VoIP the Best Investment Available Today?

I finally ran the numbers.

I now know what the true damages are for having cut my landline phone service and rolled-my-own Voice-over-Internet (VoIP).

My most boring blog graphic ever.
Until you look at the final number.
Yowza!

First there is the investment.  About fifty bucks for my recommended analog-telephone adaptor, the compact OBi100 or OBi110 units, available from Amazon.  These can provide telephone service to your whole house (just be sure to disconnect your landline from the phone company's drop outside your house first).  It's easy-- you can figure it out on your own, or you can follow my instructions.

Then there's the option of porting your existing phone number from your landline phone company to a VoIP wholesaler such as voip.ms, with its exceptional service, great support and dirt-cheap per-minute rates.  That's $25.  (You don't need to spend that if you're setting up a new number.)

All told, on Day Zero that adds up to a whopping $75 or so as up-front investment.  And you'll have invested maybe fifteen minutes of your time to plug it all in.  (Oh, there's the $25 you must put on-deposit when you open your VoIP service account, but that's refundable if you don't use it.)

The savings are immediate.  For us here in California, we're saving typically $35 a month versus our old landline.  And that's not counting benefits like the ability to make and receive calls cheaply via WiFi from anywhere in the world using our smartphones, or how our home is now firewalled against annoying robocallers and telemarketers, or how voip.ms optionally sends us our voicemails by email and lets us set up dedicated extensions (subaccounts) for free.  The voice quality is exceptional, and everything works just as it always did with our landline service.

And so I strapped on my MBA hat and finally ran those numbers.  I set a five year horizon, though it's almost been two years for us already, with that $35 profit rolling on without any drama, so I can't imagine a good reason to ever switch away.

I assumed a 31-day month to keep the spreadsheeting easy.  Assuming it all ends in five years, I'm seeing a 9000% annual percentage yield.  Twice, since we did this at two sites.

Not too flippin' bad.   9000% guaranteed yield in this day and age, in this economy.

After-tax!

If you know of a better investment, I urge you to email me privately straightaway, and please don't tell anybody else.