VOIP Phone

I know voipfone don't support SMS on VoIP, would presume most other suppliers don't. I have heard of people getting an A&A mobile number and being able to divert SMS to email, some companies seem to think SMS only works with 07xx numbers so getting them to even attempt sending to

Pretty sure VoIP has to support emergency calls, you have to register a physical address for passing to control rooms (On pain of them cancelling your service if you don't register?)

My gigaset phones can import/export addr books in .vcf format

you need a mobile. Even if your VOIP phone accepts SMS messages many providers won't accept its number.

So you have something that works....

Most mobiles can do that...

both Android an Apple phones can do that...

yes, if you want to keep your number you can get transfer your number to voipfone.co.uk or a&A and just pay a low monthly amount and just pay as you go for the calls you need.

we have in effect done this for years...

Dave

My VOIP number is the pne I had with POTS - I have it since 1965.

VOIP phones are for saving money. The service is decidedly "ghetto".

On a mobile, you might not get a cell signal.

On a VOIP phone, the ISP may decide to reboot some equipment at 3AM in the morning. On occasion, the user discovers their router needs a reboot, before the VOIP phone comes back up. Occasionally, all data service is lost on the broadband, yet the VOIP phone still works! (spooky).

If you currently have a mobile, and are in the process of commissioning a VOIP phone, there is no real prep necessary. You would be doing a "number pull", where you pull the phone number you've always had, to the VOIP service. You tell the VOIP service to do it, and they pull the number from the previous provider. This is called "number portability".

For people without a mobile in hand, when you do a VOIP, you want an overlap between POTS and VOIP so for a couple weeks, both services are still running. The VOIP provider will give you a "gratis" phone number for two weeks, and the VOIP phone allowance in that case is for testing during the overlap period. On the final day, at midnight, the POTS phone stops working, and the VOIP phone, you make sure it is using the new (pulled) number.

POTS phone ---------------------> wall plug

VOIP phone --- ATA --- router ---> broadband

You make test calls from the POTS phone, to the "gratis" number that will make the VOIP phone ring. You pick up the line on the VOIP phone and inspect signal quality. There are eight different encodings for VOIP voice, and one of them might be slightly better than the others.

The two week setup period, allows you to review the setup page in the VOIP equipment. For example, I had a problem where hanging up the VOIP phone, caused the line to stay open on the POTS line (then, POTS cannot dial out). That could inconvenience a relative phoning you on your VOIP. It took a while to track down some setting to fix that.

Some ATA are locked by the provider, and you have almost no control over them. The ATA I got, was unlocked, and the password allows me to change the settings. But the ISP doesn't really like that, and at some point, they hacked mine from their end. Not really a surprise.

Paul

Thanks for the input :-)

Seems VOIP won't give me what I need so I'll stick to a mobile.

Probably will go for FTTP. I remember when I first had broadband installed (I lived about 2 miles from here) and the Openreach apprentice was so excited at the 1 MB/s (from memory) the BT damp sting provided!

It will. Rent an 07... number from A&A (£1.44pm), set it to deliver SMS to email. You can send SMS from their website. Then attach a VOIP phone to it and use it for phone calls in and out like a landline. You just pay

Theo

PS, a 'VOIP phone' can just be a softphone app on your mobile if you want that.

Emergency calls should work fine (you should register the correct address), but the downside is it won't work if you have no broadband connection, eg in a power cut.

Theo

You can do both and run a VoIP client on the mobile. So you could keep your LL number if you wanted.

Yup, I would :-)

Apparently not available despite what they said :-(

I am one of four bungalows in an unadopted road so they would need to find the owner and get permission to dig it up and they can't be arsed. I wonder if the terms of whatever grant they must have received require them to service everybody?

I think you could bitch and moan a bit. Or find the guy yourself.

But they can do overhead fibre...

On our private road (which also happens to be rather hard concrete) they simply ran the fibre along the existing poles. Our fibre connection comes across from a pole and onto a first floor window frame and from there down the wall.

This gets worse and worse!

Got back from shops this afternoon and found a letter from EE addressed to me personally and addresses to my house (not occupier) saying EE full fibre is available at my address!

Wow, went online, put all my details in, came back with Get Full Fibre for £26.99.

Scrolled down to:

Choose speed All plans shown use part fibre technology

Why do they do this, don't they know what they can and can't supply?

That sounded interesting to me, but when I started looking into VOIP clients to run on an iPhone, they all seemed aimed at business use and if there was any information on costs to run, I couldn't find them.

Being naive, I imagined porting my LL number into an A&A acount and just using a VOIP client on my mobile - rather than having to buy a VOIP phone or a Voip Adapter.

A&A's pricing for a VOIP number is very reasonable, but is there a charge for the VOIP client on top of that? If so, what's the cheapest for a (very) low home user?>

I use the free version of Zoiper.

Free software VOIP clients are available for mobiles and laptops/desktops.

App-based ones can also be bought for a few pounds (up to a tenner). There are some difficulties with receiving calls on iPhones due to the way Apple do power saving which means the client needs to have its own server, and the paid clients fund running that server.

Hardware VOIP boxes/phones start at about £20-30 on ebay.

Theo

Because marketing. Marketing deals in dreamware, not hardware.

I see two kinds of deals

In the table here, I'm not doing an analysis of all the "add-ons" which might affect the value (as "bundles"). Just a quick table showing the slope of price versus offering. A plan is no good if it can't be installed.

About the best I could do where I live, is around 300 over copper. I haven't checked to see if that is available. If you ordered fibre, they won't send the mole men here to do it, as the install is "too expensive". The mole men are not telco employees, they're contractors, and they now cost too much.

Sometimes you can find a web site that discusses practices and what areas are getting certain things, and what areas won't be getting the same things. Install campaigns can be driven by competition, and to capture market share, you have to "make an effort" and not be lazy to achieve a result. In my neighbourhood, there's no rush apparently. The next door neighbour received broadband over a cableTV coax wire.

I could probably get a 100 rate, but 300 would be pushing my luck. I think there is a 100down/10up plan for example.

Paul

Thanks for that. I've installed the same app, but have yet to set up a VOIP account to use it on.

(Now to tell SWMBO that the LL will stop working, once I transfer the number to A&A.)

(Follow up to own post) I now have Voiper working - after remembering that, when you add "+44" to the front of a phone number, you have to remove the leading "0". <sigh>