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.

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philips 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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semi-extrinsic an hour ago | parent | next [-]

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.

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deltoidmaximus an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

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.

	▲	philips 43 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		It is pay as you go $0.008/min https://voip.ms/pricing

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simonmales an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

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 :)