NetTalk Review – How to enhance your communications and save money at the same time.

If your like me then you have either cut the cord on your land line phone or never had one to begin with. The way I look at it if your already paying a monthly bill for your cell phone then why pay for a landline?

Your mobile phone is always with you anyway right?

Well, there have been many times that a land line would have been helpful to me. Especially since having kids it is nice to have a home phone for baby sitters or for people to use while visiting. Also, believe it or not sometimes we still need to send or receive a fax!

So there are still some benefits of maintaining a landline but for some of us the monthly cost isn’t worth it. So we make due without it.

The NetTalk Duo 2 will give you the benefits of a landline and more without a monthly charge.

The NetTalk Duo 2 is a little gadget that will plug into your router or ethernet internet line and allows you to plug in a regular land line telephone to an RJ11 jack. The unit will create a dial tone and you just pick up the handset and dial like you normally would with any other phone. The sound quality is almost on par with a landline phone and most of the time you won’t hear a difference.

Home Phone vs NetTalk

Advantages of NetTalk service

When you subscribe to a land line you pay a monthly fee which may include 1 or 2 features. You have the option of subscribing to other features for an additional monthly cost.

Table: Cost of Landline Service with all the features based on info taken from a major teleco public website.

The NetTalk Duo 2 gives you all the features that you can get on your traditional home phone service with NO MONTHLY BILL. Just a small yearly charge  for local calls and dramatically lower long distance rates.

Your phone travels with you: No Roaming or Long Distance Charges

Another great benefit of the NetTalk Duo 2 is that you can use the device overseas and call home with no roaming charges or long distance.

If you have a Vancouver number and take the NetTalk Duo 2 with you on vacation overseas then you can use your phone while there at no charge. All you need to do is plug the unit into your high speed internet connection and your local Vancouver number will ring. And you can make calls to Vancouver for free as well. If you want to make calls to the city you are visiting then NetTalks long distance rates still apply.

We are planning to do this when we go to France to visit family next year. With the NetTalk Duo 2 plugged into the router our Vancouver number will ring and people won’t have any idea that we are actually in France. And we can call home anytime without worrying about exorbitant roaming charges or long distance rates. For this to work you do need to have a high speed internet connection available.

Turn your dead phone jacks into live phone lines:

This feature is awesome. Our family currently lives in  a small apartment and doesn’t have a bunch of phones plugged in to dead lines but if I did this would be one of my top NetTalk features.

If your home has multiple phone jacks but you pulled the plug on your phone company and now you have a bunch of phones plugged into wall jacks that don’t work… then send the phone line from the NetTalk Duo 2 out to one of the RJ11 jacks in your home and voila… all those phones are now live thanks to your little NetTalk Duo 2 box.

Podcasters: NetTalk Duo 2 gives you an inexpensive Voice Mail Feedback line.

If your a podcaster, produce a webshow or youtube channel then you may be interested in having a dedicated number that will allow you to take voice mail feedback. With a voice mail feedback number your audience can call you and leave a message which you can play on the show. When you get a message on your NetTalk voice mail it forwards you an email with an audio attachment. You can insert the audio attachments into your show and take listener / viewer questions, comments or suggestions and play them in your show.

I’m currently using Line2 as a voicemail feedback line which gives me a Virtual PBX service and a toll free number for $15 per month. If you don’t require a toll free number of the virtual PBX (which most of us don’t need) then you can use your NetTalk number as your podcast line and it is only $40 per year… plus you can use it as a phone too.

NetTalk Review – Easy of Use:

Once the phone is set up you just use it like you would use any other phone. When people call you the phone rings and you pick it up and you just dial the number you want to call and dial as usual.

NetTalk Setup

The instructions that come with the NetTalk Duo 2 are straight forward. I followed the instructions to a tee and the only problem I had is that it took a long time for the phone line to activate. The instructions said it could take 20 minutes to activate and for the light on the unit to turn green but for me it took several hours.  When activating your new NetTalk Duo 2 and you are waiting for it to activate just go and do something else rather than wait for it and get frustrated that it isn’t working.

Home Phone vs NetTalk

Disadvantages of the NetTalk Duo 2:

The NetTalk Duo 2 has a few disadvantages over a traditional land line service.

1. The NetTalk line is dependent on your internet connection

2. Support is not at the same level as your traditional phone company

No Internet = No Calls

If you are using the NetTalk Duo 2 (or any VOIP service) as your main home phone then your ability to use the line is dependent on your internet connection. If you internet goes down your NetTalk Phone service is also down. Because the phone uses the internet to make calls no internet = no calls.

That isn’t to say that land line service is 100% reliable. It can go down due to wind storms or network issues. But it is important to know that when your internet connection is gone so is your phone.

Note: In the past 911 service was not available on VOIP phones. Now you are able to not only dial 911 from the NetTalk Duo 2 but you can register your address so 911 will have your location when you call.

Don’t expect the same service as from a giant telco

The other issue with the NetTalk service is the level of customer support. They don’t have the same level of service and for the price I wouldn’t expect them to either. If you handing over $30 to $50 per month to a telephone company it makes sense to have a high expectation of service.

At $40 per year I think the fact that you get any service at all is impressive.

Some people, however, really do feel the need to have a high level of support from a company and for them it may make sense to stick with a telco and pay up to ten times the yearly price for the extra support.

NetTalk hours of telephone support.

Overall, the NetTalk service is great value for the money. Especially for people who use the phone while travelling and don’t need to have a phone with a high level of customer support and the reliability of a traditional phone company. For me it is a great add on to my current communications tools. I will use the NetTalk service as a secondary phone and my Smart Phone will continue to be my primary number. And as a secondary number it works great.

Features of NetTalk:

• NEW Unlimited SMS Text Plan ($39.95 per year for unlimited text)
• NEW Call Blocking (block annoying calls)
• NEW Call ID Blocking (protect your privacy)
• Three months of service included
• 30 Day Money Back Guarantee
• Choose a new phone number
• Free local and long distance calling to the U.S. and Canada
• Live technical support, 5 days a week
• Flat-rate, ultra-low cost international call plans
• Free DUO-to-DUO-calls anywhere in the world
• Plugs directly into your router or computer
• Landline goes anywhere there is internet
• Call waiting / caller ID / call forwarding
• 3-way calling / conference calling
• Visual voicemail
• Enhanced 911
• Fax-friendly
• …and more!