Google provides free phone calls from GMail to anywhere in North America. (reasonable rates for overseas)

Cyrus (+1)  and Lifehacker pointed out that Gmail has now allowed phone calls to be placed straight from Gmail.

Google announces it here (along with a cute video)

http://gmailblog.blogspot.com/2010/08/call-phones-from-gmail.html

I thought you would like to know about this. Here is an overview. 

http://www.google.com/chat/voice/

Rates

Free calls anywhere in North America till Dec 31^st, fair rates elsewhere.

http://www.google.com/chat/voice/compare.html

https://www.google.com/voice/b/0/rates

Review

• I used it for 2 hours yesterday and the quality was very very clear. :-)
• It is super easy. 
• It will dial people from your Google contacts list (accessed through Gmail)
• It integrates with your Google voice account if you have one. (calling credit, history, google voice # on caller ID etc.)

Requirements

• You need a Gmail account. (free fast good)
• It requires a browser plug-in that you would otherwise install for using Google chat’s “voice-chat” feature.
• It requires a speaker/headphones and microphone
• (um and an Internet connection)

Use

• In Gmail on the left were you see “chat” and your friends below your status;
• Rather than clicking on a person and starting a chat,
• you click “call phones” and it presents you with a keypad.
• Type the number you want 604-555-1212 etc… and it starts ringing
• OR type a contact from your gmail contacts.

UPDATE: Gmail has extended free North American phone calls for all of 2011.  Thank you Gmail.  I know this is one of many factors causing my friends to consider giving up their home phones.

Enjoy! I hope this saves you money and helps you connect with the people that matter to you.

Cheers, Greg

Google Maps provides Free Real-Time Traffic Information in Canada

I assume you are already familiar with Google Maps. You have probably stared at satellite images of your house from space, planned the best route from your current location to a street address, and looked at maps to measure distances. Maybe you've even tried Google Building Maker to create photo-realistic 3d buildings in your city.  Possibly you've noticed the upgraded appearance of road-maps lately, but there is more... Google is now giving you more

Previously only available in the United States, Google Maps has released Real-time traffic information for Google Maps in Canada. I'm happy to say that I saw this one coming, requested it from the Google Maps team, and watched with interest as it was launched in Seattle and featured on the Google Maps blog.

Today I noticed my colleague had Google Maps open in Greater Vancouver WITH traffic information!!! Apparently it launched at about the same time as Google StreetView.

Here's how it works...

To see Real-Time traffic in Google Maps, open up maps.google.com and after the map loads, zoom in a bit and choose the "traffic" button. A legend will appear. Green=good Yellow=ok Red/Maroon=Bad Black=ReallyBad. On the map coloured lines will appear on top of the routes, showing you where the slowdowns are and which roads are flowing smoothly. Experiment with zooming in and out to see traffic for larger or smaller roadways.

Google Mobile Users can also access this information from their Blackberry or other compatible device. From the Menu in Google Maps Mobile, choose "show traffic", let it load and voila, colours on the roads. My favourite feature of Google Maps Mobile is "hitting zero" and having the application guess my location and center me in the middle of the map. Originally this feature used cell phone tower information to triangulate my approximate location and I would see a nice blue circle around me (your position within 1300 meters) as Google did it's best to guess where I was. Usually pretty good, but switching to a phone with GPS brought the guess to withing 3 meters. (9 feet for my friends in the USA). Now if I hit "zero" I can watch myself cruising down the road colour coded for the kind of traffic I'm about to drive into. Google Maps Mobile users can also contribute real-time traffic information from their cell phones by signing up for and logging into Google Latitude.

So where is Google getting all this real time traffic data, did they really dig up all the roads and put sensors in? or are they tracking us with real time military satellites?... no. Google's "Latitude" service allows you to share your location with friends (and Google) using your mobile phone. If you don't have a GPS in your phone you'll still get the triangulation data for your location to share with your friends, but it may not be good enough for contributing to traffic... So anyways, your GPS information is shared with Google whenever you are logged in that will definitely put some "mileage" on your cell phone's data plan. I'm just saying be aware of it if you pay per MB/GB. If the Google traffic robot sees one phone going down the road, it has an idea of speed, but if it sees a whole bunch, it can start being confident of the road's speed. Freeways/Interstates have higher speed limits than arterial roads etc. A little bit of algorithm work to allow stoplights to function without making the whole city look like a traffic jam... and voila.

Today i had the distinct pleasure of watching myself drive down the road, and seeing the traffic information being drawn on behind me as I went. I guess I was the Latitude user with the GPS equipped phone that tipped the scales and gave Google the confidence to draw the traffic on the map. It feels good! Now we have an option to "flipping on the radio" and weathering the annoying advertisements when we see the freeway crawling to a halt.


Cheers, I hope this saves you and your friends a TON of traffic headaches!

I can't wait to see what Google Maps does next...
Greg.

My Best Cell Phone Tips and Tricks

Get 411 for any business listing without paying.
Instead of paying your cell phone provider $1 or $2. Try Goog-411 Put 1-800-4664-411 on your speed-dial and use their voice recognition to find business listings in your area. In my experience the voice recognition is acceptable as long as someone isn't trying to talk to you at the same time. The listings tend to be useful although where they get their listings isn't exactly clear and some businesses don't appear. The good news is that most do return correct information. Advantages include:

• Handsfree dialing while in traffic
• No cost for the service
• Free connection to the listing anywhere in North America (so if you lookup a business in another state/province, that long distance call doesn't cost any more than a call to the 1-800 number)

More info here: http://www.google.com/goog411/

Use handsfree dialing via a Bluetooth headset

Today's bluetooth "handsfree headsets" are a completely different experience than the disappointing "handsfree" headsets that came with your phone when you first purchased it. I remember my disappointment when I first learned that my cell phone's "handsfree" headset consisted of half a pair of stereo earbuds (with a microphone). My disappointment turned to irritation as I would shoulder-check in traffic and the wire would pull the earphone out of my ear. Today's bluetooth headsets make dialing as easy as scratching your ear.

Do make sure you get a headset that is comfortable on your ear (it should not fly off when you rapidly shoulder check). Pay special attention to the noise and echo cancellation features. (The issue is that the people you talk to can hear an echo which degrades their listening experience.)

It is possible to get a decent bluetooth headset for $30 CAD, but consider the sets with better echo cancellation.

One nice bonus with phones which support voice dialing from your address book like the Blackberry Curve and Blackberry Bold is that dialing a number while driving is as simple as touching the headset on your ear and telling the phone who you want to call.

Power Managment Tips to Save your batteries

Despite battery advances, more features using data from the cell network means more radio transmission and often shorter battery life (before your next charge). By making a few changes you can stretch your battery life to double or better;

• Start by adjusting the screen brightness so it is only as bright as you need it to read clearly. Some phones auto adjust brightness for the ambient light to save power.
• Configure your ringtone profiles to not use vibrate unless you need a vibrate only option. The electric motors used in the vibrator function use more power than a speaker playing a ringtone.
• If your phone supports it schedule an "auto-on" and "auto-off" time when your phone will turn itself on our off on weekdays and weekends. Mine turns on at 6AM and off at 10PM weekdays.
• If you have an older phone, ensure your phone is set to use digital mode when possible rather than analog, this way it will use less power.
• If you use bluetooth, turn it off whenever you are not actively using the bluetooth as this second radio transmitter (after the cellular radio) uses a significant amount of power. Consider assigning a 'quick access' key to enable and disable your bluetooth for fast access.
• Try speaking in a squeaky high pitched voice as high pitches require less power to transmit. Nah, just kidding that last one is a complete lie I just threw in for fun.

Text Safely

Pull over or wait for a red light to type in addresses or text messages. Texting and driving while tempting is probably the most dangerous thing you can do while driving.

Use web enabled applications to extend your phone's functionality

Google Mobile tops my list of useful applications, you can get started at http://www.google.com/mobile with;

• Search (including voice search which allows you to just ask google your query)
• Gmail meaning all of your contacts and emails are handy
• Google Maps (which supports GPS if you have it, but will work fine using cell tower triangulation)

Quick Access to;

• Google News
• Google Docs
• Google Calendar
• Google Reader
• more...

Customize your ring tones for subtlety

Subtle ringtones can allow you to answer your phone before people bust you for leaving your ringer on.

If you are 30 or under, consider an ultrasonic ringtone. The idea is that as humans age they lose their ability to hear very high pitch noises, so it is possible if you are the youngest person in the room that you might be the only one who can hear your phone ringing. (very subtle, and apparently something high school teachers are having "trouble" monitoring.) Find some here: http://www.ultrasonic-ringtones.com/ (via LifeHacker). Or record your own subtle ringtone (tapping, a snap noise, water running) something that doesn't sound like a "normal ringtone."

Make use of free digital transcription

Option A

Use your existing voicemail to record "notes to self" for later retrieval. When working on a difficult problem, apart from the benefit of talking out ideas, having the ability to capture an idea verbatim is very helpful when you find yourself between home and office with nothing to write on.

Option B

Use free services like dial2do which allow you to call, record a message, and have them transcribe the message and email it to you. Frequently I phone dial2do, say reminder, and dictate what I need to pick up at the store while I'm driving. In the store I just open up my gmail and there is my shopping list.

Max out your speed dial list

Speed dial is faster and safer than using your address book. Make sure that you have numbers handy that you might need in a hurry.

• Add the local traffic radio station because often not only can you report traffic, you can ask them what is going on and get an answer faster than by listening to the radio.
• Add your local "commercial vehicle enforcement" tip line to report those scary truck drivers and perhaps save a life
• If you travel through several communities on your commute, add local emergency services for each community
• consider the "city engineering" departments for flooding / wires down and other road related hazzards you will encounter.
• Add your work's general number so that you can hit the voice recognition engine and voice dial anyone in your company. (or let the receptionist connect you which is safer than you looking them up in your address book while driving)
• Last but not least, add your home number so you can let your spouse or roommate know when you'll be home for dinner.

OK, so that rounds out the list of my best cell phone tips and tricks. Let me know what your tips are in the comments section.

Cheers,

Greg.

Save Money - Give your things away!

I'm going to let you in on a little secret...  The beauty of this secret is that it scales really really well, so the more people you tell, potentially the more people who can contribute and benefit.

[caption id="attachment_538" align="aligncenter" width="360" caption="freecycle logo"][/caption]

I'm talking about free-cycle.  You probably have a free-cycle group operating in your area.  The concept is really simple.  If you want something, you ask for it, and if somebody wants to give you that thing, they will contact you to come and pick it up.  If you have something you want to get rid of, you post it and people will contact you to come and pick it up.

Our family started with a micro-wave stand.  We probably could have got $15 bucks for it, but really... I don't want to operate a garage sale, I don't want to fight with someone over whether I'll take $12.50 rather than $15, and well I really just want to get rid of it so it doesn't waste my space.  My "interest" is unloading something I don't want to keep in my house.  The other person's "interest" is in getting a free microwave stand.  The environment's "interest" is that a piece of furniture did not need to be manufactured, stored, shipped and sold. (We've previously talked about "The Story of Stuff") The object's "interest" is that it becomes useful rather than just wasting space.    Sound "interesting?"  

This truly is "re-cycling" something useful to another person.  Because there is no exchange of money or other consideration, the opportunity for fraud / theft etc is super low (making this safer than other systems where money is exchanged for goods).

It works quite well, and I'm really pleased with the free wooden rocking chair I'm looking at across the room.  Not everything you ask for will be given.  "Lego" is a hard sell.  Nobody wants to give up their "Lego"!  It is an email group.  So don't use your work email. use a "junk email" that can receive a steady stream of offers.  

Getting started with free-cycle.

1. Chose a "junk" email address to use, because you are going to get lots of emails.

2. Find a group in your area by visiting free-cycle.org and typing in your city

3. Read the "rules" (guidelines) so you learn what kind of behaviour fits with free-cycle

4. Start reading and respond to items that interest you.

 

It is better to give than to receive.  Freecycle helps you do both in a way that is responsible; socially, fiscally and environmentally.

Cheers! Enjoy the free stuff.

Greg.

Good Design and Open Design

I'm speaking generally in this article and not attempting to show too much favouritism, but I am painting history with a pretty broad brush so I appreciate your accomodation of that. 

 

[caption id="attachment_534" align="aligncenter" width="420" caption="IBM clone PC"][/caption]

IBM PC vs Apple Hardware

Until recently the "IBM PC" has absolutely killed more proprietary hardware (like Apple products) in affordability. 

Our family owned a Laser 128 apple clone, but apart from that we have over the years owned 1 TRS80, 2 386s, 1 486, 2 Pentiums, 1 Celeron, 1 Athlon64, 2Athlons, 1 zeon  AND zero apples.  Now this is with all the exposure to Apples in the school system (hence the Laser 128)

There was only 1 "Apple" computer company making hardware, but there are many many computer companies building "IBM clones".  We could purchase a 386 for $1500 or we could purchase the same computer from Apple for double the price.  IBM decided to "open" the form-factor for their IBM PC so that low cost manufacurers overseas could "clone" or copy the hardware without paying licensing fees or battling an army of lawyers.  Suddenly this meant there were 5 -10-15-20 soundcard manufacturers, and 20 video card manufacturers, and 10 hard drive manufacturers and 40 Motherboard manufacturers all able to design compatible products and compete on features and price.  While Apple design has remained compelling, it is like Ford's model T. "Any colour you like as long as it is black".

I attended a wedding a few years ago and listened to a man chatting at a table who had worked for IBM for years comment; "It's really too bad that IBM opened up their PC design, they could have made a killing if they had just held onto that and not let others use their design and build components".  He missed it.  He didn't understand that it was precisely because others could have the blueprints that we had commodity computers and incredible demand.  (Understand there is high demand for affordable computers, and very little demand for unaffordable computers) 

Open Standards let us cooperate and work together

There are lots of smart people out there.  They don't all do things the same way, we have chaos or war unless people can agree on how to work together.  that is why we have "standards".  Those attempts to get everyone playing by the same set of rules so we can work together.  Some examples;

• A green light in traffic means...?


• In my country we drive on which side of the road?


• A Meter is exactly how long?


• Do you use POP3 or SMTP for receiving or sending email?


• Are you reading an HTML web page right now transferred by HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol)?

So standards are smart right? They allow people who are willing to negotiate or compromise to choose a common method (often it is not the "best") but it is reasonable for the greatest number of people who are willing to collaborate.

Open versus closed design

Some silly companies think that cooperating with others reveals "weakness".  They think that they are smarter than everyone else.  They think everybody should do things their way and they work hard to avoid cooperating with others.  Lets call them "big brothers" because they like to be in charge of the customer and remove choice.  Here the 2 philosopies collide.  The collaborators and the "big brothers.  Collaborators try to make things like software and file formats work with others including "big brother's.  The "big brothers" work hard to obscure and continually update their formats to make them difficult to copy.  Big brother is all about control.  Ironically Apple chose imagery from 1984 for their 1984 Superbowl ad where they were urging people to break free from the IBM PC. ROFL!  OK, when it comes to file formats, there are many "big brothers" out there.   Kudos! It was a brilliant Ad anyways Apple! (as was this um... "modification")

 

[caption id="attachment_532" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Big Brother knows best!"][/caption]

Office document formats and the battle for useability

For years, Microsoft's office formats have been the only game in town.  MS Word, MS Excel etc.  If you try exporting to another format, they you "lose features" and the docs never did look quite right.  Microsoft is no longer the only game in town, but they are holding on hard to the idea that they know best, that cooperation is not as good as being uncooperative inovation.  Every version of Microsoft office introduced new formats that would not work with the old versions of the program (or would not work well).  In order to make things work, you would have to "upgrade" to the new version.  (Now there was nothing wrong with the old one, its just that Auntie Sue bought a new computer that had the new version and now  you can't read what she writes..)  So pull out your wallet and pay money every year to be able to continue doing the same things you did last year.  That is how the "big brothers" make your life. Expensive and difficult.

Enter the giant killers.

Open Office has been looming on the horizon for years.  Their converters for MS Office documents have been getting better and better.  Now you can use free software that works pretty much as well as the MS Office programs, and it can convert to and from those formats.  Open Office saves you paying hundreds of dollars to Microsoft, and new versions address the version issues Microsoft creates.



Google has created an online system called Google Docs that allows you to create, upload, edit and download documents online. No software other than your web-browser is required, and there is a a high level of compatibility with other office formats.  

These companies are making your life easier, more affordable, and are being open and transparent about their formats so that  you have fewer hassles.  Their "open design" is translating into "Good design" and putting money back in the wallets of people who have been paying "rent" on their software for far too long.

3 Options for Free Higher Education

Don't have a trust fund full of cash sitting around to send you to the finest universities?  Don't have 4 years of your life to throw at a degree?  Want be educated by top schools and experts in the field without the typical investment of time and money?  I've discovered 3 options to get you started on Free Higher Education.

[caption id="attachment_462" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="(flickr credit: Peter Shanks)"][/caption]

1. MITOpenCourseware

Several years ago,MIT introduced Open Courseware, which was the sharing of some MIT courses so that anyone with an Internet connection could have access to lectures exams and videos.  Scanned in notes plus lectures allowed anyone to recieve an MIT education (minus the credentials and the long lineups to get into courses you want.)  I studied a little bit of queueing theory out of my own interest in the efficiency of traffic flow.  Now I wasn't pursuing this learning seriously, so I was just "browsing" so to speak.  If someone was disciplined enough to study and do the reading and assignment they could really benefit from MITOpenCourseware

2. Personal MBA

This last year I learned about  "Personal MBA" and began pursuing this myself.  Over at http://personalmba.com/, in a nutshell the claim is; "Business schools don't have a monopoly on worldly wisdom. If you're serious about learning advanced business principles, the Personal MBA can help you master business without the baggage of b-school. "  Surveyed MBA program graduates sometimes share that the greatest benefit of the MBA came from the reading list and interacting with "some of the finest minds in business" through the reading list.  Check out their "Manifesto" here: http://personalmba.com/manifesto/  For those of you eager to cut to the chase, here is the link to the reading list.

3. AcademicEarth

And even more recently I have discovered http://academicearth.org/  There you can watch videos of lectures from the following universities;

• Berkeley


• Harvard


• MIT


• Princeton


• Stanford


• Yale

on the following subjects;  Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Computer,  Science, Economics, Engineering, English, Entrepreneurship,  History, Law, Mathematics, Medicine, Philosophy, Physics, Political Science, Psychology, Religion

 

I've always found it sobering that I will not live long enough to learn everything that I would like to learn, or read everything that I would like to read.  These options offer the same challenge in that there are many good things you could pursue and learn, so you must choose well and ignore the rest.  I love that these three options truly level the playing field in terms of learning.  You may not get a degree from these options, but you can certainly use these tools for accessible quality education.

Happy learning!

Greg

Useful Portable Apps for Your USB Drive.

Not only are USB drives now commonplace, but with increasing frequency, applications no longer require installation and can run from those USB drives.

[caption id="attachment_317" align="alignright" width="200" caption="USB drive / USB Key"][/caption]

I got the idea for this post from Cam who observed that KeePass (mentioned previously) was portable.  I thought I'd share some portable apps with you that have been really useful.

If you are new to the subject of portable apps, a good place to start learning about them is "portableapps.com", Wikipedia also has some lists of portable applications to get you started.  There are a number of reasons you might want to use portable apps including;

• You are borrowing someone else's computer and don't want to install software


• You are not allowed to install software at work


• You don't want software to clog up Windows' registry and slow down your computer


• There is a set of familiar tools you want to use when moving from computer to computer.


• Portable applications that can run from your USB drive, don't make changes to your computer's registry startup files or hard disk. (unless you ask them to)


• Portable apps won't set themselves up to load when you turn your computer on.


• Sharing your most useful applications is as easy as copying some files

I've placed these in order of utility.

Texter - A powerful text replacement utility; we've looked at Texter previously

KeePass - Useful for securely storing your passwords We've also looked at KeePass previously

Firefox Portable - Run the popular open source browser from your USB key

Notepad++ - Thanks to Darryl for recommending this powerful editor which supports regular expressions and syntax highlighting.

7-zip - A lightweight archiving and compression utility

Open Office - An open source office suite similar to MS Office, which maintains a high level of compatibility with popular office products.

VLC Media player - Is described as a highly portable multimedia player for various audio and video formats; it can play almost anything.

RocketDock - This one is just for fun, but its portable, and makes your applications easily accessible.

Xampp - More for died in the wool geeks, it is a portable collection of Apache web server, the PHP scripting language and the MYSQL database.  All open source and freely available, this is the easiest way to run a web server with web applications and data from your USB key. (ever think of your USB key as a web server?)  Now you can run any PHP/Mysql web app from a computer without installing a thing. (some assembly required)

Note: Many of these applications come in non-portable versions, so pay attention to which version you get. (I recommend starting with Portable Applications).

Free Videos of Inspired talks by the world's leading thinkers.

If you are like me, for you broadcast TV is almost dead. I don't want to reschedule MY life because some corporation decided the show will air at 9PM instead of 8PM. Also, of the 30 channels that are available on basic cable, only about 2 channels will have compelling content. (if that many) So there is un-compelling content on an inflexible schedule. For favourite tv shows like Lost or the office, I keep seeing re-runs in the middle of the "season". If a season is 24 weeks, there should be 24 shows... The math seems very simple to me. If I miss a show, its GONE. Thankfully, the internet provides some more flexible options in terms of when you watch your "video content".

One such bright light on the Internet which is providing high quality video content that is worth watching is TED.  TED.Com is worth checking out. It has amazing talks available online for free. Most are 20 minutes long, and feature themes like "design" "greener living", "what makes us happy" and more.

[caption id="attachment_249" align="aligncenter" width="280" caption="Ted, Ideas worth spreading."][/caption]

If I can say one thing, it is that TED talks are top quality and very interesting. TED obviously does a great job of filtering who they invite to speak. I find myself sending friends links to TED talks which often strike me as the most carefully thought out, succinct, presentations I've ever heard on the subjects. There are lots to choose from, so if architecture doesn't interest you, "Whats wrong with what we eat", or "Inventions from tomorrow", or "The real difference between liberals and conservatives"might.

I discovered TED quite by accident while using an open media player MIRO  that highlights channels that have free content. So if you enjoy learning and challenging yourself in your spare time, consider TED.

So check out TED. The things I am seeing there

Free long distance telephone calls

I don’t like being taken advantage of. When I pay $0.10 cents a minute for a long distance call and my friends tell me that they only pay $0.035 per minute I recognize that their phone company still makes a profit and that my phone company is extracting a $0.065 stupidity tax from me for sticking with their dumb prices. For years there have been programs to let you talk from computer to computer, but it required 2 people being at their computers at the same time, running special software… well that doesn’t sound as convenient as the phone, and who wants to leave their computer running all the time?

Skype and Jajah let you make long distance calls for free or low cost.

My friend Dan King introduced me to SKYPE. He had friends in the UK and wanted to call them from Canada but without the ridiculous long distance charges the local phone company would charge. The critical difference with Skype was a service they offer which allows you to make calls to conventional phones. It is called SkypeOut, and it costs about $0.03 cents CAD per minute. Definately a better price than the one offered by local phone companies.

The Skype website says:

“Skype is a little piece of software that lets you talk over the Internet to anyone in the world for free.”

SkypeIn is a phone number your friends can call. You answer in Skype.

Use SkypeOut to call from Skype to traditional landlines or mobiles.

JAJAH - The Difference - The Benefits

Jajah lets you make phone calls for free...

• There is no download and no software


• You don’t need a headset


• You don’t need a broadband connection


• You are using your existing phone (landline or mobile) and so is the person you are calling


• You are not stuck to your computer


• You can call your friends for free - no matter if they are online or not

JAJAH is all about simplicity! Enter the phone number you want to call at www.jajah.com, press call: Your phone will ring - your friend’s phone will ring - start talking! It’s what you’re used to, it’s simple, it’s free and it just works!

I think that is a simple and convincing explanation. I’ll add an explanation that if you want to call anyone who is not “registered”, you pay them $0.025 per minute (much like Skype) When you sign up they give you $3.75 credit. They don’t want your credit card or any other payment until you use up your credit and want to make a call that costs. If you call someone else who is registered, there is no charge.

Clearly this could be the same method Skype is using (with more limitations) give free calls to build up a clientelle, then introduce nominal fees.

What I like about this approach is the freedom from software. There is nothing to go wrong on your PC, just use your browser, use your phone, you are done.

Every now and then there is poor quality, just hang up and try again. The quality is normally equal to that of a conventional phone line (nobody knows the difference)

I’ve suspected that Skype,Jajah and others are able to purchase Voip services from somewhere and I’m determined to find out how this works, so I can buy at wholesale and not retail. I see that voip-info.org has lots of information, that asteriks is a free pbx, that trixbox is a linux distribution to run your own PBX, that most ADSL internet providers offer “naked DSL” (no phone service, only ADSL), that les.net is highly recommended and acanac.ca seems to have an echo on the line for everyone I talk to.