The standard way to get phone and Internet is to pay a company like Vodafone for "home phone and broadband". The "home phone" part is what used to be known as "line rental". Its technical name is Plain Old Telephone Service (POTS), and it's been around for over a century. The advantage of a "home phone and Internet" package is that the phones, faxes and extension jack-points in your home all work just fine, provided you use a line filter in each of the occupied phone jacks around the house. Also, because this is a very common set-up in New Zealand, it's easily fixed if anything goes wrong. However, the service may be more expensive than some alternatives.

Xnet Fusion

I've recently set up an alternative system for a client - Xnet Fusion:

Xnet Fusion is a standalone Broadband Internet connection and a digital voice phone service without the old fashioned telephone line!

With Xnet, New Zealanders are no longer required to pay for an analogue phone line in order to get a Broadband connection. Starting from $69.95 (incl GST at 15%) per month, you will get a full speed broadband connection and digital voice phone line. A second digital phone line is only $11.50 per month.

Equipment costs can be quite high. The latest all-in-one device is about $400. I bought what I needed on TradeMe for $120. It didn't include wireless Internet capabilities because my client had no need for that. Set-up was surprisingly straightforward.

The main disadvantage I can see is that you no longer have multiple phones around the house. You basically have to "make do" with one portable phone. And you lose your phone service in a power cut. But then most ordinary phones won't work in a power cut.

It seems it is possible to modify the phone wiring in your house to distribute the new VOIP phone service to existing phone wall sockets. Check out the section Using VoIP as line 2 in How to Distribute VoIP Throughout a Home.

Orcon Genius

Orcon has a very similar service. I have no experience with it, but you can read an impartial description on Consumer NZ's very useful TelMe website - Home phone alternative.