I have VOIP phone service, and it works well as long as we don't need two phones off the hook at one time. If two of us need to be on the phone we can't hear anything. Is there a booster out there to power more than one phone at a time? Yes, I know about 4 station wireless, but want a less expensive option.
Mike D.
Nope.
Some phones put less of a load on the system when they are off hook. Might want to try a newer phone.
Other than that, you'll need a different VOIP device that is capable of pushing out more power.
What you're looking for isn't VOIP specific. It's just an analog signal booster for a phone line, to sit in series on the line and boost the volume, which I've never seen. Even if you did find one, I'd be surprised if cost wise it didn't make more sense to get a cordless multi-handset phone, which you can get for $50- 75 when on sale.
As an aside, this is another example of the issues you can run into when you switch from good old 2 wire phone service.
Possible the link to the net is not fast enough. There are free tests for ISP speed. Try one and compare to house. Problem may in the dish system.
Lou
A very important aside: Agree absolutely. At one time; back in the 'bad' old days telephone systems were regulated and good (an universally available) service was expected. As a result North America had the best telephone systems in the world with probably the highest number of phones per 100 of population. And yes; I was a proud and service conscious employee of that system for almost 40 years.
To preserve that quality, at one time, telcos did not allow the connection of other equipment or that at least did not meet or maintain standards such as Bell System to their lines.
That has gradually changed with interconnection and competition so that today we have a mish mash with virtually no standards! And now Voice over the internet, which has very little to do with telephones at all. Except the the telephone numbering system devised by international and inter company cooperation has been extended from the traditional telephone networks into other so-called telephone services.
The poster doesn't mention what type of phones they are. Not saying they are el-cheapos; but if they are some have very low impedances which don't match a telephone line or anything else very well. Or they take too much current. You can't just hitch stuff up willy nilly without any reference to technical specification or standards and expect it to work!
The worst case we ever had was two cheap phones that two children had 'won' as part of a magazine subscription that were of such low quality that they disabled their parents' telephone line; their father was a fire fighter who missed several emergency call outs! Could have been serious. Fortunately our local telco. was service conscious and socially responsible. It investigated; disconnected the two non standard phones. Service immediately returned to normal.
The original posting, as said, is not VOIP specific it has to do with a proper interface between the computer and the phone gadget/s. Deal with your computer service provider.
We have Have used VOIP with varying quality. Occasionally internationally.
Anecdote:Yesterday the phone rang and someone who sounded like teenager speaking on a terrible connection, sounded like it was coming over the internet, voice kept breaking up, was distorted and choppy etc. tried to sell me Long Distance (which I virtually never use within North America) at 3.5 cents per minute. Told her that if she couldn't offer better quality than that while trying to 'sell' me service they shouldn't try.
Can't help you on that. But I'll hijack your thread since it's VOIP. I bought a Linksys VOIP phone to use on Skype. At my cabin, I can not get it to work with the dish system. All I get is garbled sound. I've contacted Linksys and Skype and they sent me lists and lists of things to try, but I can't get the damn thing working. Even bought a regular computer headset and tried that. It works at my lowland house over a dish, but not up at the cabin.
Any ideas?
Hope you get your problem solved. Hope someone can help me with mine.
Steve
I don't believe that your problem is VOIP specific at all. Many times, modern electronic telephones won't work correctly (even with POTS) if two are off hook at the same time. This is particularly true is the telephones are of different brands/models.
Are you using the same sat service at both locations? If not suggest using the known working service at the cabin location. I seem to recall noting that the Hughes service was know to function (with the expected sat delays) with Vonage service.
Don't forget that while speed is important, latency is too. That is a problem with satellite internet.
They worked fine on a standard land line. My Voip service is 1/4 the cost of land line and unlimited long distance. Looks like I will need to go wireless when they go on sale.
The "traditional" phone interface electronics in the VOIP routers are not built to the same standards as the TelCO's central office gear. It's not surprising that it would not have the same line load capacity as the TelCO, however you should at least check with the manufacturer of the VOIP gear to see what the load capacity should be as it's possible you have a bad unit. As far as boosters go, the only "booster" that I'm aware of would be a TelCO grade line extender which would cost more than the cordless phone setup. Welcome to the world of bleeding edge technology where you're finding the bugs in the system...
"Mark Lloyd" wrote
Both places have speeds in excess of T1. However, I do believe the latency is more at the cabin.
Steve
"Pete C." wrote
Different systems at the two places. Speeds are high, but different providers.
Steve
Try a telephone amplifier. I've got this one and it works swell.
VOIP is superb. With diligent searching and bargaining, we got our long distance charges down to 3.5c/min. Still, our LD bill was over $200/month. All that went away with VIOP.
We use Vonage, but there are other services available.
???? I don't need a louder handset. I need to power 2 different phones at the same time. This is NOTHING like what I need.
We had a Hughesnet system and the latency was ~80x greater than a terrestrial connection making it totally useless for any real time two way traffic.
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