Maybe only Steven Scharf (and I) will give a rat's hindquarters about this,
because he and I used this service in the past, but anyone who calls
internationally or roams internationally might find it interesting.
First the background- Voicestick is a VoIP service provider that has been
trying to get a foothold for a long time trying a bunch a different ideas.
First was a goofy USB memory stick (the "Voicestick," hence the company's
name) with softphone software pre-loaded so you could plug it into any
Windows PC without installing it (good for public computers or friend's
computers, I guess) to make VoIP calls.
More recently, they offered a useful service they called a "cellular bridge"
that offers cheap international long distance calling from your cellphone or
landline. You set up an account, call your Voicestick VoIP number from your
cellphone (or any of three phone numbers you pre-register with the service),
and get prompted to enter an international number and you connect at the
VoIP rate without messing with calling cards or setting up VoIP hardware or
software (though you can do that too, if you like.)
They also allow you to set up international forwarding. Say you're going to
Europe or wherever and plan to use a local prepaid service in whatever
country you'll be visiting. You set all incoming calls to your Voicestick
number to forward to your European prepaid SIM, then forward your US
cellphone number to your Voicestick number. Anyone who wants to reach you
overseas calls your regular US cellphone number, and you pay the cheap(er)
VoIP rate for the US-to-European prepaid cell instead of your American
carrier's $1-2/minute roaming rate.
This was a great service until about a year ago, when a change in management
at Voicestick implemented a bunch of monthly fees taking their former
pay-only-for-the-minutes-you-use-plan, and added account maintenance fees,
E911 fees, $5/month "bridge" fees, etc. ruining the service for light or
casual users.
Now the good news- Bruce Nicklin, the old VP of marketing at Voicestick back
when they were good, is back on board after a house cleaning. He's
implementing a bunch of changes over there, including the elimination of all
"garbage fees" (E911, etc.)
The old free DID (incoming number) plan is back, albeit with a new $1
minimum monthly charge (to prevent abuse- he said a lot of overseas users
were taking the free DIDs reselling them and/or setting up call centers
plowing through tens of thousands of incoming minutes. The new "Next to
Nothing" plan currently offers free incoming DID, $0.01/min. incoming, $0.02
outgoing. If you use less than a $1 of time each month, the account is
charged a flat $1/month.
He claims to be negotiating with providers to get lower rates for outgoing,
and says they might be able to bring back a flat rate incoming bucket of a
few thousand minutes for $4 or 5/month or so for people who want to use it
for VoIP. A buck a month for access to the "cellular bridge" dial-through
service to make international calls from a cell or landline is reasonable,
and might just beat OneSuite's PINless cards for cheap LD/casual VoIP again.
If you're interested, keep an eye on the Voicestick website over the next
few weeks as they're completely revamping the whole operation- Bruce posts
regularly in the VoIP tech chat forum at
http://www.dslreports.com/forum/voip soliciting ideas for features to
implement. He's also hoping to open up SIP URL dialing so you can call to
and from other SIP-based VoIP services for free (like Gizmo project offers)
without hitting the POTS system and generating termination fees.
He's an entertaining fellow- his posts at dslreports are fun to read if
you've got any interest in VoIP in general.
A little OT, maybe, but Voicestick's "cellular bridge" is back! 
Linear Mode
