Philips VOIP3212 cordless digital telephones

Good evening. We are considering buying a 'twin pack' of the above, my wife having discovered that, using Skype, she can speak to her mother, who lives in Cyprus, without incurring phone charges.

What I'm not clear about is what needs to have a physical connection. Presumably one phone needs connections to the mains, to a PC and to a land line, but what about the second phone? Presumably it must be connected to the mains, but does it also need a physical connection to both the PC and land line, or just the land line?

Thanks!

Reply to
Graeme
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I've not used these, but a quick glance at Amazon's page for them (from Google) suggests that they have a base station as well as the two handsets. So you would connect the base station to the mains, the phone line, and either a network connection or a PC (better VOIP phones don't need the help of a PC and go straight on the network; I suspect these are the kind that do need a computer which may or may not be an issue for you). The handsets will then talk to the base station via DECT, which is the same standard used by cordless phones for the last ten years or so. (Which almost certainly means you could add two or three new handsets from any manufacturer to the system, if you felt like it.) The phone handsets themselves won't need any wired connections to anything, though it looks like they come with charging cradles which would need to be plugged into the mains (and the phones to spend at least some time sitting in the cradles to charge their batteries).

Like I say, this is just from a quick glance at Amazon's page and a certain amount of intuition as to how these things work, but I hope it helps.

Pete

Reply to
Pete Verdon

Thanks Pete - yes, it helps. I too looked at the Amazon page, but not having used a system like this before, I couldn't decide quite what needed connecting to where. I think you're right. To summarise, the base station connects to the mains, to the PC and to the land line. The first phone itself is cordless. The second phone is cordless too, and the only physical connection required for the second phone is mains power for the charging station.

It would all have been a bit pointless if I needed to run a second connection to the land line and/or PC, but this does not seem to be the case.

Reply to
Graeme

I also haven't used this device but you probably don't need a "landline" or wired telephone connection to plug into the base station (the box device). The connection to the SkyPE network is via your computer and its broadband Internet connection (which may need a landline , but it doesn't need to be connected to the SkyPE device.)

A better solution (IMO) would be to use an Analog Telephone Adapter (ATA) e.g.

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and then use a standard Voice over IP (VoIP) network. These allow you to use standard wired or DECT cordless phones and, since they connect directly into a broadband router, don't need your PC to be switched on to receive or make a call.

You'd be better off asking the question in uk.telecom.voip, especially when it comes to choosing which standard VoIP network to use. (SkyPE is proprietary so cannot inter-work with other VoIP networks. It also makes use of your computer to form part of their network, which can make it run hotter than you expect, with fans not going as slow as they used to)

Reply to
JohnW

I've been using the 321 earlier version for I think a year now. Excellent. The handset display is a bit small and crude but perhaps the new ones are better.

assuming this is basically the same as mine, there is a base station which plugs into USB for the Skype and a landline socket for normal phoning. This links cordlessly with the two handset stations. They just need a mains socket. Good range. Good sound quality. You can see your skype contacts on the handset including skype out.

Peter Scott

Reply to
Peter Scott

In message , Peter Scott writes

Thanks for all the comments received - they have told me exactly what I need to know.

Cheers,

Reply to
Graeme

Hope I'm not too late. Maplin has a special offer on a single handset Philips Skype phone for £30.

Peter Scott

Reply to
Peter Scott

Not too late at all - and thank you.

Reply to
Graeme

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