Comment by semi-extrinsic
1 month ago
I "made" something like this 7-8 years ago for our first kid. When I say "made" I mean I bought a "fixed wireless terminal" for $40 on eBay, a classic landline phone for $30, and a cell phone subscription for kids ($5/month). Then I connected the parts, and voila, we had a landline for kids.
Obvious benefits include low cost, full interop with all other phones, and having the kids learn our phone numbers by heart after punching them many times.
I made something using a VOIP phone and voip.ms. What provider has a $5/mo kids cell subscription!?
voip.ms is about $1.30/mo with the cost of the phone number (DID) and "minutes".
I have some more breadcrumbs on this thread if you are interested in details on my setup too.
Regarding minutes, how many minutes? My kids basically hog my VoIP "landline" talking to their cousins 50% of the time they're home. (They're actually playing games together and using the phone as voice chat). I've been thinking of trying to get a second line for them to hog but didn't want anything with limited minutes.
It is pay as you go $0.008/min
https://voip.ms/pricing
My cellphone provider offers a limited kids cell subscription. Things like "can only call 5 different pre-approved numbers, no data traffic". I think the business model is that after a period of time, people bump into the limitations and upgrade to the $10/mo version.
Thanks for sharing the "fixed wireless terminal" tip. A HN post a while ago describe hacking a landline to a wireless terminal. But this tip removes the hacking :)