UPC digital phone & answering machine/fax machine

janmc

Novice question here, but is it possible to use an answering machine with a UPC digital phone? Argos had a DECT phone with an answer phone built in and wanted to check before I bought it or something like it first whether it would work. Any recommendations also welcome.

Another thing is a fax machine - I know they've become an anachronism but they do come in handy the odd time - is it possible to connect one? A standard one or a specialist one? The modem has 2 phone jacks in the back.

Thanks

(Mods this seemed the best fit of the forums - please move if I've posted in the wrong location)

janmc

Hopeful bump?

Solair

janmc wrote: »

Novice question here, but is it possible to use an answering machine with a UPC digital phone? Argos had a DECT phone with an answer phone built in and wanted to check before I bought it or something like it first whether it would work. Any recommendations also welcome.

Another thing is a fax machine - I know they've become an anachronism but they do come in handy the odd time - is it possible to connect one? A standard one or a specialist one? The modem has 2 phone jacks in the back.

Thanks

(Mods this seemed the best fit of the forums - please move if I've posted in the wrong location)

UPC "Digital Phone" is not digital, at least not what comes out of the back of the socket on their little box. It's actually just a regular analogue phone connected to their network using a VoIP adaptor. Any analogue phone can be plugged into their modem/ATA device. It's only digital from that box out over their network. From the phone socket on the back to your device is 100% analogue.

1) Answering machine: Yes, no problem. It will work exactly like an eircom line. Just plug in your device into the back of the modem/adaptor they supplied you with. However, 171 voicemail is free on UPC and included with the service, so you might want to get them to turn that off for you if you intend to use a physical answering machine.

2) Faxes - reports are that they work, but they may run much more slowly over UPC. Eircom's or any other traditional phone network's switches use TDM (time division multiplexing) to encode your voice. It's 100% digital, but it's very different to VoIP which UPC use. Your fax machine, or any analogue modem, is designed to work with a traditional TDM switched telephone line, not a VoIP line. VoIP will sound perfect for voice, but it may mess up modem signals.

(Eircom and other PSTN providers are now beginning to carry their voice data using a type of VoIP, but it allows them to retain backwards compatibility with modems and faxes and keep the same signal characteristics of the older TDM digital switches. This is not the same as VoIP used by UPC, Blueface etc)

"High Speed" voice-band modems make use of all the bandwidth on a regular digital PSTN line, which can get them up to close to 56k. Later generation faxes go up to 36.6kbps, which is using similar technology to the old dial-up internet modems. Sky boxes use a regular dial up modem too.

Basically, your fax will just drop back to 1980s speeds on a UPC VoIP line, but it will more than likely eventually get there

janmc

Extremely helpful, thank you! Did not know about the voicemail so you have saved me the cost of an answering machine