I had dial-up for years, because of the price.
I had used the software called Callwave.
for about $3.95 a month.
(your telephone provider will charge you a small
fee also for call forwarding your calls to the callwave number)
(the Callwave is a software that keeps you from
missing your calls. It is a answering machine
on the PC. You still miss the call, but you
can hear the message, just like an answering machine.
If it is an important call, you can disconect your pc to call back the person.
It works rather well, and I never had a problem
with callwave.
Their are other softwares around besides
Callwave.
They have 2 price plans, I used the cheaper one.
www.callwave.com/landing/CORP_Main.asp