[NA]phone via internet[NA]

Let'sgoflying!

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
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20,261
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west Texas
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Dave Taylor
You can tell I'm not up on all the terms. Maybe this is VOIP?
Anyway I am up on their billing. Last month it was $40 for one phone line and Uverse internet. This month it is $92.

So, I want to retain the internet and somehow get a phone line to run over the internet line (reminder; it's uverse).

How, what devices, what costs, can I retain my phone number?

Can I also have that phone line 1500' away in my business (as I do now).
 
I have a skype number on my Android Phone since cell service is spotty at my house.

If you have a smart phone and a wifi connection. Just load skype on it. I think i pay $10 every 3-4 months for the number and it has free skype to skype calling, and I pay a minimal amount per call for calls to non skype users.
 
I use Ooma for a business line. I've been pretty happy. Can't fax or use an alarm system on it though.
 
I used to use VoicePulse, but their quality went into a massive nosedive a few years ago. I now run an Asterisk server and use FlowRoute as the SIP trunking provider. I've been generally happy with the reliability and cost of that arrangement, but in the rare instances when my Internet connection burps, inbound callers receive a "not in service" message. If I was using a "hosted" VoIP provider, inbound callers would at least get voicemail instead of a dead end. Since it's my residential line and the Internet blips are infrequent, that problem hasn't been a big deal.


JKG
 
Have ordered Ooma on Bill's suggestion. If it does not turn out, he is on the hook.
Some are saying the voice quality can be poor. Although they claim "We couldn't possibly make it any clearer" on their main page.
Oh, Bill - the rep told me faxes should be no problem.
 
I have sent faxen regularly with my Ooma unit, no issues.
 
Asterisk with Vitelity as SIP provider, here. Nobody ever called on the land line anyway so the asterisk on a raspberry Pi hasn't been turned on in months.

I just use the cell phone which also now has WiFi calling built in on the TMo network. Note top left corner of this iPhone screenshot. Ignore the RSSI number. That's to the local Viaero tower. I leave the iPhone in RSSI test mode all the time because "bars" are meaningless. ;)

c28ceb8d90ff5cd0f00701b6fc1e3d66.jpg
 
You can tell I'm not up on all the terms. Maybe this is VOIP?
Anyway I am up on their billing. Last month it was $40 for one phone line and Uverse internet. This month it is $92.

So, I want to retain the internet and somehow get a phone line to run over the internet line (reminder; it's uverse).

How, what devices, what costs, can I retain my phone number?

Can I also have that phone line 1500' away in my business (as I do now).

We had AT&T land line for a long time and paid through our nose for basic service (not even long distance). For one monthly bill, we bought an ObiHai box for a VoIP service. For another monthly bill, we transfered our land line number to Google Voice. Now we are bill-free and AT&T free. YAY! I can't imagine throwing out $500/year on basic local phone service anymore. I feel unshackled.

You can either run a 1500' long phone line to your business or install a second VoIP box at your business location.
 
You can tell I'm not up on all the terms. Maybe this is VOIP?
Anyway I am up on their billing. Last month it was $40 for one phone line and Uverse internet. This month it is $92.

So, I want to retain the internet and somehow get a phone line to run over the internet line (reminder; it's uverse).

How, what devices, what costs, can I retain my phone number?

Can I also have that phone line 1500' away in my business (as I do now).

I have used a Magic Jack for a number of years and have been satisfied with it. It is a self-contained VoIP device that plugs into your PCs USB Port or directly into your router/switch. The price is hard to beat (around $20 per year). There may be newer offerings out there, but I have had no reason to investigate them.

Someone else said that Magic Jack does not support porting your current number to their system. I didn't care about that.

As for extending the line over a considerable distance, there are several wireless devices available to do so. Here are two (there may be others):

http://faxswitch.com/zipline_wireless_Phone_LineandEthernet_Extender.html

http://www.carlsonwireless.com/trailblazer/

Good luck!

Dave
 
I ported a number to Ooma and ran that for a year or two and it was fine. Then I moved and never re-hooked up the Ooma, but would get occasional calls to the voicemail box, which delivered it to my email, but finally killed that too, as they were pretty much all sales calls. I haven't had a land line in four years and don't miss it. The people that need to reach me have my cell number.
 
You can tell I'm not up on all the terms. Maybe this is VOIP?
Anyway I am up on their billing. Last month it was $40 for one phone line and Uverse internet. This month it is $92.

So, I want to retain the internet and somehow get a phone line to run over the internet line (reminder; it's uverse).

How, what devices, what costs, can I retain my phone number?

Can I also have that phone line 1500' away in my business (as I do now).

You switch your phone number to a T-Mobile number, then use the "Wifi Calling" mode over the broadband.
 
Have ordered Ooma on Bill's suggestion. If it does not turn out, he is on the hook.
Some are saying the voice quality can be poor. Although they claim "We couldn't possibly make it any clearer" on their main page.
Oh, Bill - the rep told me faxes should be no problem.

I have Ooma at 1 vacation home and at our office. We have the basic Ooma service at the vacation home and the Ooma Premier service at the office. It comes with the Premier service which must be cancelled within a month or 2 of starting service or the Premier service fee will be charged monthly. Basically the cost is about $5 / month for basic or $15 / month with premier.

It has worked very well for voice calls both incoming and outgoing.

We attempted to use an Ooma at a 3rd location in conjunction with an alarm. It did not work and we had to go back to 2 expensive landlines for the alarm dialer.

We attempted to use Ooma (both with and without the Linx device) for a fax machine in the office which has premier service. We found faxing through the Ooma was unreliable. Outgoing faxes were more reliable than incoming faxes. We tried different settings. We spent hours troubleshooting. Nothing helped. From recollection I believe we had a failure rate of about 50% outgoing and 80% incoming. My understanding is this stems from an incompatibility between VOIP and fax technology. We abandoned attempts to continue use of the Ooma line for faxing and currently pay for a POTS landline for fax use only. We still use the Ooma Premier service in the office for phone as it works very well.


I have sent faxen regularly with my Ooma unit, no issues.
Interesting. Do you also receive faxes regularly?
 
Hero or Goat?

Bill is a hero, the Ooma works great! Actually it was Spike who put me onto it first I think.
The connection took maybe 10 days, the audio is fine. Have not tried faxing yet.
There is an online logger that tells you who you called, when, how long and you can hear all your voice messages on their website too.
It also ran the 1500' to the office just fine.
Ca-ching; $$ is being saved each month.
(It's a cat and mouse game I'm sure; once AT&T figures out where all their landline business has gone they will jack the internet prices up.)
 
Hero or Goat?

Bill is a hero, the Ooma works great! Actually it was Spike who put me onto it first I think.
The connection took maybe 10 days, the audio is fine. Have not tried faxing yet.
There is an online logger that tells you who you called, when, how long and you can hear all your voice messages on their website too.
It also ran the 1500' to the office just fine.
Ca-ching; $$ is being saved each month.
(It's a cat and mouse game I'm sure; once AT&T figures out where all their landline business has gone they will jack the internet prices up.)

Or they will do like Comcast does to HBO Live and make it so horrible you can hardly put up with it.
 
Ca-ching; $$ is being saved each month.

(It's a cat and mouse game I'm sure; once AT&T figures out where all their landline business has gone they will jack the internet prices up.)


Not at all. They're a backbone provider. They're getting paid either way.

And copper is costly to maintain. They'll happily charge you just under $1200 a year for wireless and let the copper plant rot.
 
Just moved into a new place, got an ObiHai 200, connected it to the house's existing landline (after disconnecting the telco wire from the NID) and linked our two Google Voice numbers to it. Easy peasy, as long as you don't need 911 service on the land line (which can be had for an additional fee from a separate provider).
 
Just moved into a new place, got an ObiHai 200, connected it to the house's existing landline (after disconnecting the telco wire from the NID) and linked our two Google Voice numbers to it. Easy peasy, as long as you don't need 911 service on the land line (which can be had for an additional fee from a separate provider).

We have 911 service on our VoIP GV phone. Free.
The payment, IIRC, goes toward your address being registered with the E911 service so that when you call, the operator gets your address on screen.
 
Anyone know how much internet is needed for a voip line, or 4? My house is 6down 0.5up with one line.
Thinking about doing it for the biz; same speeds but 2 lines plus a fax/credit card line.
 
is there anything accurate about this?

I think that's pushing you to a higher rate than you need. You should be able to do quite well with a couple of hundred bps up and down. In the pre-IP days, a T1 supported 24 phone lines on 1.544 Mb up and down - that's 64K per line. VoIP uses encoding and compression to lower the bandwidth requirements. So your circuit should be able to support 2 voice lines without too much sweat. Emphasis on SHOULD.

But if you use VoIP for fax or data (modem) operation such as credit cards, the bandwidth requirements will go up.

Most IP phones will adjust their bandwidth use if the overall bandwidth is limited. I think Ooma does (my IP circuit is significantly higher rate, so it's not a good basis for comparison). Quality will go down as bandwidth becomes limited.

Remember that there are other factors, too, that affect VoIP, such as jitter, transmission delays, dropped packets, high retransmission rates, etc. I had an unwanted chance to test that - on my 10 mb business circuit, Ooma dropped if the packet loss got above 8-10%. I was surprised that it was that tolerant. It did sound bad, though, like a horrid cellphone connection.

There's a thread in the Ooma forums that talks a bit more about Ooma's bandwidth needs: http://ooma.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=4&t=11771&start=0
 
But if you use VoIP for fax or data (modem) operation such as credit cards, the bandwidth requirements will go up.


Nyquist agrees. You're going to need G.711 to properly handle a modem or a fax.
 
Nyquist agrees. You're going to need G.711 to properly handle a modem or a fax.


If you have a data connection, just send faxes electronically (via RingCentral or something). Also, don't credit card machines come with Ethernet ports yet?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Everything about Ooma was looking good but got blindsided by AT&T.
I was ok with the 200$ box and 45$ porting fee, in trade for reducing my AT&T bill from $53 ($37 voice, $16 internet) to internet + $3.50/mo
However....
AT&T charges more for Internet only than Internet plus Phone!
$55 for Internet only.
Think I just shot myself in the foot. No other phone options here.
 
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