Wow. Clay Shirky is shredding the telcos and explaining the advantages of VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol).

A Vonage customer can make an unlimited number of unlimited-length domestic long distance calls for their forty bucks, with call waiting, call forwarding, call transfer, web-accessible voicemail and caller ID thrown in free.

The best part?

Cisco now manufactures an analog telephone adapter (ATA) with a phone jack in the front and an ethernet jack in the back. The box couldn't be simpler, and does exactly what you'd expect a box with a phone jack in the front and an ethernet jack in the back to do. … the ATA lets you use your phone as a phone, allowing new competitors to offer voice service over any high-speed internet connection.

I'm assuming it only works for one phone. That would be ok if it were used for say, a business line. What if you want to replace all your phone service that way? (multiple phones in various rooms of the house)

Nevertheless, this is really cool!