VOIP Advice - Basic Setup for PSTN move

relicalpha

relicalpha

relicalpha

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2 Feb 2020
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152
Location
UK
Hey,

I need to move my parents landline over to VOIP, I can get the Andrews and Arnold service and have their router with voip support - but after that I am clueless in terms of hardware needed.

* Can you use multiple (ethernet?) base stations for the same number? There is a long distance, too far for DECT, between one of the phone locations and the router so a single base station wouldn't work here.
* Can you run VOIP over wifi? Like is there wifi phones, or is ethernet basestation to DECT the way to go? Or handsets that plug directly into ethernet? I guess im not sure how the VOIP bit fits in for the handsets...
* Is there any kind of voicemail service, shared across all handsets? They currently use 1571 if there is something similar?
* Any phone/base recommendations that fit the above?

Thanks!
 
Actually kind of in the same boat. I was also not that sure on this DECT stuff but most people prefer it (probably due to compatibility).

As for point 2, you definitely can have pure Wi-fi VoIP. One that kept coming up was the Grandstream WP810 or WP820 but quite expensive. I also read that Grandstream can require some extra config to work with A&A and can still have problems (recent thread here as an example): https://www.ispreview.co.uk/talk/threads/grandstream-ht801-help-please-not-quite-solved-yet.42438

A&A seem to recommend Yealink as standard if you buy hardware from them. Based on that for Wifi VoIP, this seemed pretty decent: Yealink SIP-T31W (W indicates Wifi version).

Another idea was to just provision an old smartphone with Acrobits that connects via wifi.
 
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Thanks that's really helpful, so if I need multiple base stations, do you know if those can work on the same LAN for the same single VOIP phone number?

e.g. if you have two Yealink wireless base stations on your LAN with phones on each, could you roam between them? Would picking up a phone on one tune into the call on the other like with DECT/PSTN?
 
Caged said:
Are you sure your house is big enough that you need multiple DECT bases? The range on DECT is pretty huge.
Click to expand...

Sadly yes, it's to an outside office that has LAN access but even long range DECT (BT elements) seems to struggle for the phone. Was hoping there might be a nice VOIP solution when I move the landline over but it seems most options have some kind of base station with range limit.
 
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Look at Wi-Fi phones or if you're comfortable using an app on your smartphone then that would be the way to go. It's not worth investing in multi-cell DECT.
 
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relicalpha said:
Hey,

I need to move my parents landline over to VOIP, I can get the Andrews and Arnold service and have their router with voip support - but after that I am clueless in terms of hardware needed.

* Can you use multiple (ethernet?) base stations for the same number? There is a long distance, too far for DECT, between one of the phone locations and the router so a single base station wouldn't work here.
* Can you run VOIP over wifi? Like is there wifi phones, or is ethernet basestation to DECT the way to go? Or handsets that plug directly into ethernet? I guess im not sure how the VOIP bit fits in for the handsets...
* Is there any kind of voicemail service, shared across all handsets? They currently use 1571 if there is something similar?
* Any phone/base recommendations that fit the above?

Thanks!
Click to expand...

Entirely depends on whether you want to buy new phones or want to convert your existing phones.

Unless you want to research it, the best thing to do is choose a supplier first, then look to see what equipment they suggest. They will often supply pre-setup or instructions on how to set up the recommended equipment.

I wanted to convert my existing phones, but I wouldn't recommend that unless, like me, you have old phones that you really want to work!
 
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