And your two fallacies:
a. you misinterpreted part of what i said,
b. not enough research and actual testing re this topic-- & btw i don't consider myself at all knowledgeable on this.

1. Talking about vonage vs lingo vs comcast vs mci, and esp. using that 39.99 figure, is too superficial of a look at this industry segment, and several levels behind the ball.
2. Without delving too deep: there are providers offering for in the teens unlimited local & international, local & national for between $5 & 9.
3. Take it a step further: get your own equipment to handle multiple lines-- not just one or two-- be willing to if necessary tweak hardware / network settings & download modded firmware(no, nothing illegal or against TOS)-- and you can have worldwide calling for $0, yes 0; by combining free unlimited incoming providers w/ free unlimited ougoing providers, while utilizing standard phones--no kludgy software or having to have the computer on.
4. Your QOS concerns, at $40- or even half of that- have merit, but at $0 or just a few dollars-- hey, you can sample a dozen or more providers & keep what you like...i like using 4 permanently: two back up the two main ones.
You should try them out for yourself, because even the big boys have problems or will have a region or two where their service lags; and yes, you can stick only with the ones that have been around for a few years--who, even if not directly selling to the public, some of them have been providing basic service & infrastructure to the majors. The lack here of established direct service & a proprietary customer base is offset by the substantial experience / expertise; this is what i meant by paying for a brand- some company that comes along, slaps their label one and resells someone elses's product. The only potential major advantage w/ a major, is their already-established service agreements with others, enabling it to cover larger areas-- but this is where one's own actual testing, for practically zilch to boot, overrides that.
5. Support? Which major telco provides decent support? Anyhow, if i have my own equipment & backup providers that cost me nothing or just a few dollars extra, what do i care if there's a temporary/regional service glitch? I will always have an alternate line to make free calls with.
Extra benefit: I can even auto-forward for free to my cell phone or another line all my calls when i leave the house.
Someone in a dire situation, that has to receive all their incoming calls, can't miss a single one-- well, they can go to Virgin Mobile Pay as You Go: they have a $25 phone that comes w/ a $25 card-- 3 months later, and every 3 months, they must add $20; so discounting the phone price, that's 60 / 12, for $5 a month this'll be their home phone-- they can then buy a cellular adapter and connect all their regular phones to it, run another line to the voip adapter & its unlimited free-or-low-price outgoing services, and not skip a beat.

Peace.

Score: 0