Phone Connection
In the spirit of going Off-Grid and reducing on-going costs, we opted not to connect the phone line. This raises the question of how to communicate with the modern world. Since most poeple today use their phone for internet and voice, if a way could be found for the internet then it was only voice that was a problem. We could just use mobile phones... but there is another choice.
Voip
Voip has been around for a while now and if a reilable, low latentcy internet connection is available, it provides a suitable substitute to a land line. The call rates are quite low, usually only a couple of cents a minute. Also, because there is no physical phone line there is no line rental. The phone number that people dial to reach you is called a DID. This number can be a local number. You would need to ask your voip provider. Usually the DID will cost you a couple of dollars a month.
The hardware consists simply of a voip adapter or a voip enabled phone. I use a intergrated router that has a voip port. For a provider I have found telecube to be very good.