Is VoIP Right for Your Company? Take VoIP for a spin to find out if it's right for your company.

Curious about VoIP phone service? PhoneGnome is a low-cost way to see how VoIP fits your company before you start incurring monthly fees. The wallet-size device lets you make free internet phone calls without any change to your current phone numbers, services or handsets.

Once connected to a traditional phone jack, the $119 (all prices street) black-or rather, gray-box serves pretty much the same IP/PSTN conversion function as the ATA adapters you get when you sign up with Covad, Vonage or other VoIP providers.

But unlike with those services, you'll never have to change or add phone numbers to get service--a potentially significant expense for growing businesses. There's no disruption of aux-iliary services--911, directory assistance, answering machine, TV, security--that rely on PSTN protocols. There's no risk of losing phone service during a power outage (which happened to me five times last year). Unlike IM-based calling from AOL Instant Messenger, GoogleTalk or Skype, there's no software to use when making calls.