For $999, a lifetime of Internet phone calls

Making unlimited phone calls for a fixed monthly price has proven to be a key selling point for Internet phone services like Vonage and AT&T CallVantage.

But an upstart Dedham company is raising the stakes, offering consumers all the phone calls they want for the rest of their lives.

RNK Telecom Inc. is promising subscribers that for a one-time payment of $999 they can make an unlimited number of unbilled calls for their remaining days on Earth.

Customers would have to continue to pay another company for a broadband Internet connection, however.

RNK plans to begin offering the "Phone for Life" plan today to Massachusetts consumers, through retail partners including Galaxy Internet Services of Newton, Pro-Speed.net of Tyngsborough, and Voip2Save.com of Providence. The same deal will be offered in New Hampshire and Rhode Island later this month and in New York in January, company president Richard N. Koch said.

At current rates, compared to the $30-a-month cost of AT&T Corp.'s CallVantage Internet phone service, with the first month free, RNK's offer would not save a consumer money until after 34 months of service.

Likewise, Vonage Holdings Corp.'s "premium unlimited" service would be a better deal than RNK's until about 40 months had passed. Vonage, which charges $25 a month, is the biggest US provider of "voice over Internet protocol" phone service, with over 200,000 subscribers.

But, Koch said, "We think there's a lot of appeal to the message that you never get another phone bill again. Ever."

People who sign up and later move can transfer their RNK-issued phone number to the new location. Residents of states where RNK is marketing the service can switch their current home or business phone numbers to the "Phone for Life" plan.

RNK also offers some big perks other carriers do not. AT&T and Vonage's fixed rate covers only calls within the United States and Canada, and Verizon Communications Inc.'s VoiceWing covers only the United States, charging 1 cent a minute to Canada.

RNK's price includes unlimited calls to most of Western Europe and Russia, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Israel, and South Korea, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan.

The $999 price includes a VOIP-enabled phone or adapter for plugging a phone into a broadband Internet connection. As with all Internet phone plans, subscribers must pay separately for broadband service, which typically costs $30 to $45 a month.

RNK's service also lets people use their lifetime Internet calling accounts for free outbound domestic and international calls from their cellphones, with subscribers paying their wireless carriers only for their minutes of air time.

By converting phone calls into the same digital format as e-mail and Web pages, Internet phone plans can slash the cost, turning phone service into just one more stream of data traffic over a broadband connection rather than a premium service demanding a Bell System network.

"Going back to the telecom boom days of the 1990s, there was often talk of free telephony service" once VOIP took off, said Thomas Valovic, an analyst with International Data Corp. in Framingham. "We're not there yet, but what's going on is a very big change in the market. It's very chaotic, and it's going to continue to be very chaotic."

From super-cheap calling cards to VOIP services sold through big-box electronics stores and now RNK's "Phone for Life," Valovic added, "It's going through new channels of distribution and creating some really new and different models for selling service."

Though no household name, RNK is a regulated phone company licensed by the Massachusetts Department of Telecommunications and Energy and expects revenue of $26 million this year with ample, but undisclosed, profits.

Among other services, the 68-person company handles 4 billion minutes of phone calls annually from prepaid calling cards and other services.

For consumers leery of entrusting a small company with $999, RNK offers two versions of a money-back guarantee: 100 percent refunded within 60 days, or 50 percent refunded within five years. In each case, RNK would subtract from the refund the cost of calls made, at the rate of 1.9 cents per minute.

Besides the $999 lifetime plan, RNK is today launching a business-oriented service at 1.9 cents per minute for calls throughout the United States, Canada, and its 20 overseas service areas, after users pay a one-time $99 fee.

RNK is not racing to expand beyond the four states now envisioned, Koch said.

"VOIP is a new service, and we're not sure where it's going in the world. We're going to take our time and see how it works out."

Peter J. Howe can be reached at howe@globe.com.