IP Phone or DECT+ATA?

kazzer

Which is the best setup to go for? I see that IP phones can be quite expensive, but are they better than using an ordinary phone with an ATA?

jasontallon

Hi

It depends on what you want to do.

You can get VOIP DECT phones that can also take your land line.

With an FXO + FXS ATA you can route incoming PSTN calls to your analog phone and have outgoing calls go out over VOIP

An FXS ATA would turn your analog phone into a pure VOIP phone.

VOIP phones are coming down in price and some places sell them for as little as 29 euro.

Really its down to what you want to do.

Jason

Fresh Pots

Where is selling them for €29?

jasontallon

Hi

IP-001 here

Jason

probe

jasontallon wrote: »

Hi

It depends on what you want to do.

You can get VOIP DECT phones that can also take your land line.

With an FXO + FXS ATA you can route incoming PSTN calls to your analog phone and have outgoing calls go out over VOIP

An FXS ATA would turn your analog phone into a pure VOIP phone.

VOIP phones are coming down in price and some places sell them for as little as 29 euro.

Really its down to what you want to do.

Jason

You can use a DECT IP phone (eg Siemens 450 IP http://gigaset.siemens.com/shc/0,1935,hq_en_0_122378_rArNrNrNrN,00.html) with a PSTN line AND your ethernet connection for VoIP and you don't need an ATA.

There is also the 455 IP which has voicemail.

The sound quality with an ATA is substandard compared with using an IP phone - wired or DECT.

.probe

Fresh Pots

probe wrote: »

You can use a DECT IP phone (eg Siemens 450 IP http://gigaset.siemens.com/shc/0,1935,hq_en_0_122378_rArNrNrNrN,00.html) with a PSTN line AND your ethernet connection for VoIP and you don't need an ATA.

There is also the 455 IP which has voicemail.

The sound quality with an ATA is substandard compared with using an IP phone - wired or DECT.

.probe

Forgive me for the stupid question but what is the black box in the picture?

joePC

The black box is used for plugging into your Phone Line and Router/switch for VOIP.

probe

mad.mike wrote: »

Forgive me for the stupid question but what is the black box in the picture?

The black box is the PABX that connects all the elements together. You have an extension in bedroom 1 and 2 and an extension in the lounge and one in the kitchen. You can call from one to another and call outside over either VoIP or your analog landline connection. The black box also stores the voicemail and provides other services.

One can see the full range of Siemens Gigaset VoIP phones at http://gigaset.siemens.com/shc/0,1935,hq_en_0_121551_rArNrNrNrN,00.html

.probe

PS: Nothing herein should be construed as a recommendation from .probe that you use DECT or any other type of radio communications technology. A DECT base station (ie the black box) is like having a low power mobile phone cellsite in your home (while it is switched on). It is pulsing away 24h/24 even when no calls are in progress.

The healthy solution is the wireline VoIP phone such as the Snom 300 http://www.snom.com/en/products/snom-300-voip-phone/ which delivers excellent sound quality (as good as ISDN on VoIP to VoIP calls if you use the G711a CODEC option). Any decent VoIP provider will allow you to run several phones on a single account, so you end up using the VoIP providers Asterisk system as your home PABX. Alternatively you can run Asterisk http://www.asterisk.org/ software on an old PC and connect your VoIP phones together via this platform. Each phone is plugged into your Ethernet network. If you run out of RJ45 jacks on your modem router, get a cheap switch to give you another 8 or 16 jacks.

"Welcome to the Voipist household. Press 1 for Lisa, press 2 for John...." Voicemail, transfer calls over the internet across the world, free, conferences, etc etc. Unlimited possibilities.

JohnnieM

jasontallon wrote: »

Hi

IP-001 here

Jason

Great site..

Solair

I bought the Siemens C450ip from Blueface about 6 or 8 months ago, it's a fantastic little device.

The black box is just the DECT base station. You connect an ethernet cable in, and optionally, a regular telephone line. It's also 100% compatable with any existing DECT handsets that you might have, so they can all benefit from VoIP service too. There is a seperate mini-base station for the handset, which is just a charger. So, you don't have to charge your phone where you keep your base station e.g. you could have the phone charging in your living room, while having the base station in your study or whatever suits. Quite a lot of the higher end Siemens Gigasets work like this (for analogue phone service too)

The base station's no where near as powerful as a GSM cell site, its power output's tiny i.e. it's exactly the same as any cordless phone base station. Lower power than most wifi hubs.

From a usability point of view, the analogue side of the base station behaves exactly like any other Siemens Gigaset and is 100% compatible with all of eircom's services, including Caller ID, Call Waiting, SMS send/receive etc while the VoIP side of the system gives you access to any SIP based VoIP provider as well as Siemens' own Gigaset.net network which allows you to call other gigaset users over the internet for free.

You can configure the VoIP settings using a web interface, similar to that found on most routers. So, you just point your web browser towards the address displayed on the handset and it lets you log in and set everything up.

You tell the phone whether you want VoIP or PSTN (landline) to be your default method of calling.

When you dial a number, it automatically routes it to your default service.

If you want to use your secondary service i.e. your landline, you simply dial * at the end of the phone number or dial the full number and hold down the "call button" for a second or two. The phone will then pick up the landline and dial out as normal.

Incoming calls display "For PSTN" if for the landline
or For VoIP if coming from the VoIP service.
Caller ID info comes up for both.

Sound quality's great, I'm getting calls that sound indistinguishable from a landline over my blueface connection and an eircom 3mbit/s DSL line.

It's a much better setup than an ATA which is basically faking a PSTN phone line. the quality's never quite the same as a real PSTN line and often you'll find that things like caller ID and call waiting don't work quite how you'd expect them to. I'd definitely recommend getting a proper VoIP handset.

probe

Solair wrote: »

The base station's no where near as powerful as a GSM cell site, its power output's tiny i.e. it's exactly the same as any cordless phone base station. Lower power than most wifi hubs.

I'm not suggesting that it has the same output as a GSM cell site on top of a mast... A DECT base station output is not dissimilar to low wattage GSM/UMTS picocell for in building/home coverage. I wouldn't put one in my bedroom! Put an AM radio next to any DECT base unit, and you will hear it emitting all the time. While I might use WiFi to provide coverage to my laptop in a garden on a sunny day, I wouldn't leave WiFi switched on in a house either. You can't beat good old Ethernet cables for VoiP or PC network access - although they can be a challenge to keep tidy. Anyone building a new house should get it wired for Ethernet from the outset.

.probe