It seems that the VoIP providers are just as bad-or worse-than the mobile phone carriers in the United States, which generally don't let you take your phone to a competing provider. Unlike with US mobile phones, where there are two standards, pretty much all customer premises VoIP hardware speaks SIP, the lingua franca of VoIP. Just recently, I threw a Vonage-locked Linksys ATA/Router combo that Vonage refused to unlock for me. What a waste!

The other thing I know about most VoIP hardware is that with the notable exception of the Linksys VoIP gear, most of it can be hacked, given enough time and inclination. Even the Linksys gear can be hacked, but it takes metric tons more work than the other devices.

It was nice to see Garrett Smith provide a nice step-by-step guide on how to liberate a Sunrocket Gizmo from the now defunct Sunrocket and use it with a different provider. In this example, it's Inphonex. However, it seems likely you may be able to use this device with other VoIP providers that will provide the SIP credentials and allow you to use your own device.

If you figure out how to configure your Sunrocket Gizmo to work with other service providers, please post in the comments as I'm sure our readers would love to know the details.