Need Help Finding a Phone Service

[Bottom Gun]

My home is in a rural area. I have been using Verizon for my phone service, both cellular and wireless land line. Cell reception is very poor and unreliable here at my home so I rely mainly on the wireless home phone device. For whatever reason, the wireless home phone works far better than my cell at my home so my cell only sees use when I'm away from home.

Verizon informed me that I must upgrade my phones and devices to be compatible with their new 5G service upgrade which is coming soon. So, I ordered a new wireless home phone device just like my old device only 5G compatible. The problem is, this new device doesn’t work in my location. After two trips to the Verizon store and hours on the phone with “tech support’, Verizon gave up and now says they can’t help me and that I should continue using my old equipment until they stop supporting it. At that point, however, I will be without a home phone.

So, I have been searching for a VoIP service. Magic Jack tech support tells me their service is NOT compatible with my Linux Mint 20.1 OS so MJ is not an option.
I asked Vonage the same question and received two conflicting answers from two Vonage tech support reps. One rep says my OS doesn’t matter and Vonage will work fine while the other rep tells me that Vonage and Linux aren’t compatible.

So, I’m in a bit of a spot. I don’t want to order Vonage service and find out that it won’t work for me. Nor do I want to be forced to use Windows OS in order to have a home telephone.
So I have a couple of questions in hopes that someone can help me find a service.

Does anyone here successfully use Vonage with Linux OS?

Can someone recommend an alternate VoIP service that is compatible with Linux OS?

I would very much appreciate any helpful suggestions or comments. Thanks in advance for your help.

 

[Kingjoey]

My folks live out in Heber and service there is crap, even with Verizon. They recently got Starlink so calling over wi-fi at home usually works better than cell

 

[pvreb]

I also live in a rural area. We have gotten by using the landline for home use and Tracfone for away from home. There are probably less expensive alternatives than Tracfone if your away from home usage is significant. I recently went with T Mobile with the misunderstanding that they serve this area. That is another problem, to be solved later.

 

[mallic]

My company uses vonage and they sent out a voip modem to be used with standard phones. That should do you just fine if you aren't trying to use softphone features.

Alternatively, if you get google fi for cell service, they let you make calls through your web browser on your pc by going to messages.google.com. I'd imagine that would be OS neutral. Though you'd be stuck with tmobile for net when you actually use your phone.

 

[XJThrottle]

Why not just get a cheap windows machine just for your phone needs. It can sit idle on the top shelf..

 

[mallic]

Why not just get a cheap windows machine just for your phone needs. It can sit idle on the top shelf..

Or run windows in a vm on linux, which is free

 

[kptaylor]

Had Vonage and only used it plugged into the router for the phone home base. No computer involvement since I never used the soft phone option.

 

[YNOTAZ]

If you have Internet for VOIP use Ooma, free for one line. They charge for the network bridge device, and you might get a small bill for telephone excise and other taxes, like $5 per month but that's it.

If you don't have Internet service, get a mobile phone extender. They act as a mobile phone repeater and will give you anywhere from 30-50 mile range depending on the terrain.

 

[Bottom Gun]

Had Vonage and only used it plugged into the router for the phone home base. No computer involvement since I never used the soft phone option.

I didn't know it would work that way. I don't know much about Vonage.
That might work because I'm only looking to use a land line phone.

If you don't have Internet service, get a mobile phone extender. They act as a mobile phone repeater and will give you anywhere from 30-50 mile range depending on the terrain.

I have internet service but Verizon promised to send me a network extender for my cell phone months ago No sign of it yet. I'm ready to give up on Verizon which is why I'm looking for an alternative.

 

[kptaylor]

Vonage sent me two phones, the home base that plugged into one of the ethernet ports on my router and another charging-only base for the second phone. Just plugged in the home base and plugged an ethernet cable from it into the router and that was pretty much it.

 

[TheAccountant]

Do you want a separate home line and cell line or would a single line work? If a single line will work, then just make sure whatever phone you’re upgrading to has wi-fi calling capabilities (most do). Your cell phone will essentially be voip when you’re at home.

If you do want separate lines, you can always get an older smartphone to use as your home phone (or maybe your current cell phone will work) and use something like Google Voice for free over your home internet. As long as the phone can run apps and connect to wifi it should work.

 

[Brlux]

Do you have reliable internet/Wifi at home? Most modern smart pones have a wifi calling option you can turn on and it seamlessly routs calls/texting over your internet. In my experience it works very well when there is little or no cell reception. I have a Galaxy S9+ on Verizon. I know the Iphones work very well at this as well.

As I understand it Magic jack is a USB adapter that works through your computer so OS does matter. Vonage is a network adopter that connects over Ethernet to your internet network and allows you to plug in a landline through RJ11. Your computer OS does not matter because it does not rout through your computer, it is a standalone device on your network.

I tried a Verizon network extender at my office years ago and it was terrible.

 

[ducatilover]

Look into an obitalk device that you can use with a Google voice number. It's a voice system and its free. Just pay for the device. You can pay for add on features like 911 service, VM, etc. There is some manual setup work that can be a bit confusing but if you run Linux than you should be able to figure it out.

Most of your voice systems come with a stand alone voice adapter that doesn't need to be plugged into your computer -as others have said.

If you have reliable internet service with decent speeds you can use the wifi calling option available on most smart phone. You may even be able to use a phone only for wifi calling (even if you don't have a cell provider). Not exactly sure about that though. Look into Google hangouts app.

Try the app Textnow on a spare phone you have laying around. You get a local number assigned and dont need to have cell service either.

 

[vvalter_vvhite]

I use magic jack VOiP:

https://www.magicjack.com/account/mjLandingpages.do?page=index

 

[vvalter_vvhite]

Try the app Textnow on a spare phone you have laying around. You get a local number assigned and dont need to have cell service either.

The problem with textnow app is, you can't receive a call if you have not called that particular number first, which is good in a way, but not always...

 

[Bottom Gun]

I think I’ve found a solution. I discovered my wireless internet provider, Bluespan, offers phone service too. I’m going to try it.