Thinking of switching to VOIP

[Louis Car]

As per title, I'm looking to move to VOIP to save some money on my comms bills. My BT landline is little used but I still want to keep the number if possible. However, looking at the deals available I can probably cut my BT bill by half.

Currently and fairly recently I bought a RT-AX86U. I don't believe this is a VOIP capable router so what are my best options.

I have some panasonic DEC phones so it would be good to keep those working as normal but so far I've gone around in a few ever decreasing circles of confusion and so thought maybe I'll apply for some clarity and help sorting out a path

 

[alecmascot]

Use SipGate and a Linksys PAP2T for £20.
I have used this for several years.

 

[Louis Car]

T

Use SipGate and a Linksys PAP2T for £20.
I have used this for several years.

Thanks for the suggestion. I see it has 2 ports so I should be able to have a phone working in my bedroom and living room as I do now.

 

[KevTech]

I use Ooma.

 

[RMerlin]

What you need is called an ATA. I use an old Linksys SPA212 personally, it`s very reliable, but has been discontinued for years.

If I were to replace it, I would probably look at Grandstream products. I currently use a Grandstream VoIP phone for work (while my home phone is on old DECT 6.0 connected to the SPA112 ATA).

 

[W3Wilkes]

If your home is wired for land line and you currently have phones spread through the house you can just plug one of the RJ11 ports into your house RJ11 and all phones should work as they did before. Be sure to unplug the old phone jack that is in the demarcation box outside your house.

 

[Louis Car]

What you need is called an ATA. I use an old Linksys SPA212 personally, it`s very reliable, but has been discontinued for years.

If I were to replace it, I would probably look at Grandstream products. I currently use a Grandstream VoIP phone for work (while my home phone is on old DECT 6.0 connected to the SPA112 ATA).

Ok thanks I'll look at Grandstream - I'm guessing they all do the same thing. One confusion I came across is that Sipgate (aparently) are not recommending ATAs now. Can't remember now where I saw that. I made me wonder what they "were" suggesting.

I also wasn't sure if my phones were compatible as they are quite old now but they are Dect cordless with colour screens so I think should be ok.

 

[Louis Car]

If your home is wired for land line and you currently have phones spread through the house you can just plug one of the RJ11 ports into your house RJ11 and all phones should work as they did before. Be sure to unplug the old phone jack that is in the demarcation box outside your house.

Ok, I was a bit aprehensive about that as I have the usual BT master plug that comes in (it has a test socket when a plate is removed and when plate is in place one plug) and that leads to an extension in the bedroom. The router is in the living room and the master plug is in an awkward place in the hall.

I don't really know where the plug is outside frankly. Maybe I could disconnect the wires in the master box which connect to the outside (if I knew which they were) ?

The alternative is to just bite the bullet and set up my own wiring and avoid the box altogether.

 

[Tech9]

If I were to replace it, I would probably look at Grandstream products.

I'm using one HT812. It's stable, never had any issues with VoIP service. The original blue LED's failed in about a year time, were barely visible. This is the updated by me hardware revision with green LED's. We have to go green anyway.

 

[dosborne]

I have also used the grand stream HT812 for many years and was happy with it. I only switched to using the voip capabilities of my cable modem/router out of convenience. (All in one device - one less power plug) I also have a Linksys spa3000 (clone) that I bought to take with me when I travelled but never got around to actually using it yet.

In my case, it was easy to disconnect the incoming phone line (although I'm not sure that is strictly required, it depends on how the Telco "disconnects" your service) and I simply plugged a splitter into an existing wall socket so that I could connect the voip line to all the existing internal wiring/jacks.

 

[Blacklistedcard]

What you need is called an ATA. I use an old Linksys SPA212 personally, it`s very reliable, but has been discontinued for years.

If I were to replace it, I would probably look at Grandstream products. I currently use a Grandstream VoIP phone for work (while my home phone is on old DECT 6.0 connected to the SPA112 ATA).

I also use the SPA 212 with freephoneline.ca, which I got the from a case of Budweiser 24 of beer. They had some VOIP phone software as a promotion. I've had the phone number for about 10 years.

 

[RMerlin]

I also wasn't sure if my phones were compatible as they are quite old now but they are Dect cordless with colour screens so I think should be ok.

Anything that has an RJ11 that directly goes into a home jack (and not something that goes into a business phone system) will be compatible with an ATA. You can even use a FAX machine with them.

 

[RogerSC]

Using 1-VoIP service here, which uses a Grandstream HT802. I can plug the Grandstream HT802 into the phone jack by my computer, router, etc., and then plug the 5 extension Panasonic DECT 6.0 cordless phone base station into a wall jack in another room. Then the 5 extensions are distributed around the house, of course. We also have an old wall phone in the kitchen plugged into a phone jack and that works just fine, also.

Have also used Ooma, didn't work well for me, the server that we were on had some call quality problems. Unfortunately, since Ooma costs less, but 1-VoIP is pretty cheap as well. 1-VoIP works well and has a nice set of features that helps to minimize robo and telemarking calls (manual number blocking, Nomorobo and "Stir/Shaken").

I've used these various VoIP solutions on eero and ZenWiFi AX meshes, as well as an RT-AX86U. No problems on my end at all.

 

[BobD]

I'm using one HT812. It's stable, never had any issues with VoIP service. The original blue LED's failed in about a year time, were barely visible. This is the updated by me hardware revision with green LED's. We have to go green anyway.

View attachment 37915

I'm also using this device. It's easily set up and works well. It keeps separate logs of phone calls and SIP activity. It also has what I call star functions (if allowed in set up) which can turn off (and on) things like Do Not Disturb etc. from the phone. See the attachment for allowed controls.
Tech9, are those leds discrete devices and easily changed?

 

[Tech9]

Tech9, are those leds discrete devices and easily changed?

No. SMD LED's I think 0603 size. You need parts, steady hand and the right equipment to replace. I used needle tip soldering iron and microscope.