Telephone Line

First and foremost, you need a good quality, land-based phone line, relatively free of personal calls, on which you can receive incoming calls. VOIP phones like Vonage are NOT landline phones. They create problems with call quality, touchtones registering, and disconnections. This also goes for a cable telephone line. In a nutshell, if you have a phone line that goes out if the power is out, it's not a landline. If you have a VOIP line and it causes any problems, you'll have to switch to a landline through the telephone company before we can send you more calls.

Telephone

Also important is a corded, touchtone telephone of good quality. Some nice additional features would be a mute button, headset, and/or volume amplifier.

Cellphones are not permitted due to frequency of dropped calls and poor sound quality. Cordless phones are not recommended due to privacy, reception, and battery issues.

Your Location

It is best to take calls somewhere private -- your caller deserves your complete attention, and will be able to tell if you're distracted. Background noises take away from the call and bother your caller.