Cheaper Home Phones, International Calls, Business Phones, and Fax Lines

Picking up where the last post left off, we'll get into how to painlessly slash your home/international phone bills (if you still prefer to have a central home line instead of/in addition to a cell,) as well as saving money on small/home business telecommunications expenses.  The solutions for all of the above are pretty much the same, so grouping everything together into this one missive makes sense.

• Home Phones/Business Phones:  For excellent call quality and dirt-cheap pricing, a Magic Jack is the best and easiest way to go that I've found yet.  I use a Magic Jack for my business line, and it's a great and inexpensive way to keep a dedicated line open for a mere $20/year.  If you run a small business and want each of your employees to have a dedicated phone line, you can just buy each employee a Magic Jack for their computer workstation and they'll each get their own line, voicemail, et cetera for very little money.  And of course, the fact that Magic Jacks are portable and compatible with just about any Windows or Mac computer makes them ideal when it comes to offering company phone lines to remote employees around the world.  Oh, and since my allergies to retail pricing compel me to mention this, hitting up eBay is a great way to save money on your initial Magic Jack purchase.  While the $20/year for domestic service is indeed what you will pay once you get the Magic Jack, the device itself generally will run an extra $20-$25 when you first purchase it.  I got my (brand-new) Magic Jack device and first year of service from eBay for about $33 shipped, and I've been thrilled with it.  As of this writing, that still seems to be a fair price on eBay for a single, new device plus one year of service if you just want to Buy It Now. It should also be noted that if you want to buy several of Magic Jacks at once for a business situation, you can probably pay even less per unit from certain wholesale eBayers.  And of course, Magic Jacks are great home phone solutions, as well.  You can plug a regular phone into the jack, or you can spend another $5 on eBay for headsets that plug into your computer.  The choice is yours. 
• International Calls:  This is a little more complicated, since these rates can vary widely depending on the country/region you call.  If you decide to get a Magic Jack and only make international calls rarely or occasionally, their international rates aren't too bad.  (I'd link you directly to the Magic Jack official site for those rates, but that particular page hates my AdBlocker software.)  However, if you frequently need to call both near and faraway lands, you might want to look into the Ooma device.  The Ooma device retails for about $250 new, but again, you can easily get an Ooma for about $50-$100 off the retail price simply by shopping on eBay.  Ooma allows you to call within the US for free once you buy the device, and even typically expensive-to-call international locations (e.g. Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, Cameroon,) are remarkably inexpensive compared to the competition.  However, while Ooma might be a good idea for a small office, be aware that there is technically a 5,000 min/monthly limit.  Just don't abuse the privilege, and Ooma can be a great cost-saving addition to your home or office.  The final option that you might want to consider for international calls is Skype.  While Skype's international rates to actual phones are pretty comparable to Magic Jack's, these calls are totally free if both parties use their own Skype accounts to contact each other.  If you only have a handful of people or clients located abroad (who have regular access to a computer with a high-speed internet connection,) that you call frequently, asking them to set up their own Skype accounts for mutual cost-savings is a great, easy way to save some cash.  Additionally, as commenter Jean5643 pointed out on my last post, it should be noted that Tracfone offers international calling on their cell phones to most places for the same price you'd pay domestically!  If you just make phone calls to a select few people overseas once in a while, you can just keep it simple with a single phone line in this case.  
• Fax Lines:  The best deal here is going to depend on how often you need to use a fax line.  If you run a small or home business that only sends/receives a few faxes per month, the best deal is likely to be Fax87, with plans starting at around $60/year.  For a small business that needs a few more faxes per month than that, RingCentral Fax offers 500 free faxes per month for under $80/year, plus other plans that offer up to 2500 free faxes per month at $50/mo.  (Consider your fax volume on your busiest months before choosing a plan for best results.)  Additionally, if you just want to send or receive a single fax or two every once in a while, you can go to FaxZero.com and pay a few bucks in order to save yourself the hassle of dealing with a trip to a place like Kinko's, the UPS Store, etc.  All of the above fax options are simply fax-by-email services, so make sure that you have a working scanner on hand before signing up.  Gotta love the future!