I've followed this thread since Caillou started it off because I was considering VoIP as well. I'm currently in Calgary half way through a three month contract and the cost of long distance calls home has been painful.
Until Caillou mentioned Vonage, the only Canadian provider of VoIP I had heard of was Primus. I compared what the two had to offer and decided to go with Vonage. For $35.00 per month, I get a line with all the bells and whistles (voicemail, call forward, etc.), the VoIP modem, my choice of area code, and 500 minutes of free long distance anywhere in North America to other area codes. Since I chose my home area code (514), all calls I make to or receive from most of Quebec are local and don't affect the 500 minutes. There's a $39.00 signup fee but no long term contract. The service also enables online account management, voicemail by e-mail and other perks. There are also extra cost options like a second line ($13.00), fax line ($10.00), a softphone line using X-Ten ($8.00), etc.
I ordered last week and the modem arrived last night. I hooked it up to my wireless router attached to the hotel's Telus high speed, plugged in a cheap Panasonic cordless (900 MZh) with a headset, and started calling - for hours.
So far it's been fantastic. The line's been clear and high quality, no voice lag or echo, no dropped calls, etc. Even if I was at home, it would be about $20.00 a month cheaper than a full featured Bell service. While on the phone, I don't see any real impact on my wireless internet connection. It's all good.
As a former Bell technician and manager, I'm sensitive to the issue of loss of service in the event that the electricity goes out. Part of the Vonage setup is a number to automatically forward calls to if there's no power. This is apart from normal call forwarding.
Time will tell if the quality remains consistently good here and once I take it back to Montreal. At this point I'm not sure I'd give up my land line at home and depend only on VoIP but it sure makes a strong case for a second line. For travelling, it's a lot of junk to tote around and only makes sense if your going to be in one place for a while. If I keep doing this kind of thing, I'll experiment with the softphone option later.
I'm a real happy camper with this so far - thanks for the heads up on Vonage, Caillou!