Edison, N.J.-based Vonage (www.vonage.com) offers two levels of residential service. A $39.99 monthly plan provides unlimited local, regional and long-distance calls to all 50 states and Canada, and a $25.99 plan includes unlimited local calling and 500 minutes of long- distance (3.9 cents a minute thereafter). Vonage just signed a deal with EarthLink to market its service, but no details were announced.

The Vonage phone sounds as good as a conventional telephone and better than the best cell phone we've heard. To tell the difference between a Vonage line and a land line, we had to switch back and forth on a two-line phone and listen closely to detect a quiet background buzz on the Vonage phone.

Since your phone must stay plugged into the Vonage adapter, you can't use household phone jacks and you'll need to buy a cordless phone with its own extensions to add phones in your home. A Vonage phone also can't work as an intercom for an apartment building. And, because there's no standard phone-company billing, you can't call 900 numbers.