How FreePBX/Asterisk saves $252 a year on voicemail

I’ve been running a home based Asterisk based system - FreePBX for just over a year now. And I have to say I probably wont’ go back to a regular phone system ever again.

An aging 1.0 Ghz Celeron HP tower was destined for the dump, so I grabbed it.

First reason - voice mail
There are only *two* people in my household. My wife and myself.

Bell was charging us about $7 a month for Call answer on our home line and $7 each for our cell phones. $21 monthly

FreePBX was able to answer to eliminate all three voice mail charges and was able to separate our home voice mails to the right person. Wow. $252 a year.
The cool part about this is when I receive a voice mail at home, I get a text message on my cell phone saying who it was from, and the voice message comes to me in my email.

I can check it from a phone or a web page or my email client.

Again, wow.