VoIP / landline providers

qbhatti

qbhatti

qbhatti

Associate
Joined
4 Oct 2021
Posts
175
Location
Uk
Not sure where exactly to post this but I'm looking for a second line and wondered if anyone had any good experiences with VoIP /.sip providers?
 
Sipgate used to offer a free version which is no longer available.

A&A are the next cheapest at £1.44pm
If you make a lot of calls, some other providers tend to be better

I am porting my number next week to A&A and their customer service so far is excellent; question answered within an hour.
 
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I plumped for A&A a month or two back to replace my copper line and ported my old number. I didn't spot any call packages but as I generally use the mobile these days that didn't bother me. Again I found their customer service to be very helpful.
 
picnic said:
I plumped for A&A a month or two back to replace my copper line and ported my old number. I didn't spot any call packages but as I generally use the mobile these days that didn't bother me. Again I found their customer service to be very helpful.
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that sounds great - 2 positives is what i was looking for.
im going to be moving my parents' phone over - they have had their number for 40+ years so dont want to lose it.
 
qbhatti said:
that sounds great - 2 positives is what i was looking for.
im going to be moving my parents' phone over - they have had their number for 40+ years so dont want to lose it.
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If they use the landline a lot then I would go with a service provided by their ISP or BT. Reason being, I have had a lot of issues with mine and American ATA equipment. It's probably better to go with equipment that your supplier has vetted and at least you can complain about if there is an issue.
Poor quality sound and problems with DTMF have been the main issues.
 
SpellowHouse said:
If they use the landline a lot then I would go with a service provided by their ISP or BT. Reason being, I have had a lot of issues with mine and American ATA equipment. It's probably better to go with equipment that your supplier has vetted and at least you can complain about if there is an issue.
Poor quality sound and problems with DTMF have been the main issues.
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I got hold of three n510IP base stations by gigaset..these are Poe powered commercial grade ones.
The handsets also I got used and they work really well tbh.

Im trying to move away from the ISP as this may change and it's a pain in the butt trying to ensure our number is kept.
 
Moved To Sipgate in 2018. Best decision ever. been rock solid and no messing about with virgin etc porting numbers in and out.

shame they don’t offer it anymore.
 
I've found VoIP phones to be extremely unreliable. If it's not DTMF, then it's something else. Curse BT for ending support for landlines. They are forcing this on us, without any thought for a replacement.
I am not sure what the solution is.

Megahackerd said:
they used to offer a free option. they discontinued that and now the cheapest starts at £13
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Yes, that is expensive. When you consider that many ISPs are offering a service for £7pcm with free calls.
The problem with my supplier is that they only provide the service with their router, a fritzbox, which, apparently, has proven not to work when set behind another router. I haven't tested it because it would require a subscription to do so. The Grandstream I have sits behind my existing router no problem at all. ISP's really need to get their act together on this. I can't see many people being happy that they are forced to use an ISP router.

I have a free Sipgate account and that's the only reason I still have a "landline".

The Grandstream 801, by the way, has proven to be the most reliable ATA to date. I can even simulate the old-fashioned dring-dring noise of BT phones!

There's less than two years now to sort this out. Once again - curse BT for this!!
 
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BT have thought of a replacement, their Smart Hub 2 has been working with Digital Voice for nearly three years now without any problems in terms of call quality, reliability, or DTMF passing through. I've not heard of any issues where people are moved over to plugging their phones into the back of Virgin Media hubs either.

If other ISPs haven't managed to test equipment and get a reliable product out then that's not BTs fault. I set up a Cisco ATA191 the other day with A&As VoIP service before porting my number to cease my BT Broadband connection, it worked with about five minutes of configuration.
 
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Another +1 for AAISP, as that's who I have ported my old BT number and it's been working with no issues I have been using Gigaset equipment.

I do also have a free Sipgate account but that's mainly used as another line if needed
 
Caged said:
BT have thought of a replacement, their Smart Hub 2 has been working with Digital Voice for nearly three years now without any problems in terms of call quality, reliability, or DTMF passing through. I've not heard of any issues where people are moved over to plugging their phones into the back of Virgin Media hubs either.

If other ISPs haven't managed to test equipment and get a reliable product out then that's not BTs fault. I set up a Cisco ATA191 the other day with A&As VoIP service before porting my number to cease my BT Broadband connection, it worked with about five minutes of configuration.
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Yes, but like I say, their solution forces you to use the router supplied by your ISP, which, to me, is not an acceptable solution. Also, the BT version of VoIP is not compatible with other ATA. So if you buy in to the system, you can't change your equipment.

Cisco 191 is terrible. Unfortunately, the DTMF has all sorts of problems. I simply couldn't get it to work with everything. Maybe that was my fault, but there is zero help out there. The only one I could get working was the Grandtream, which seems to work with most things I phone. However, even that, the DTMF doesn't work with my ISP help line!!!
 
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I don't think you can criticise something for being easy to use and reliable but also not as customisable as you want. I would put money on the number of people using the router that their ISP supplied in the 95%+ area.

If you know enough to know that you don't want to run the ISP hardware then you also know enough to do things like number ports to different VoIP providers and configuring your own hardware. What is the overlap between people who want to use their own 3rd party router and also want a landline anyway?
 
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Caged said:
I don't think you can criticise something for being easy to use and reliable but also not as customisable as you want. I would put money on the number of people using the router that their ISP supplied in the 95%+ area.

If you know enough to know that you don't want to run the ISP hardware then you also know enough to do things like number ports to different VoIP providers and configuring your own hardware. What is the overlap between people who want to use their own 3rd party router and also want a landline anyway?
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I suppose, the sad fact is that more people won't bother with a landline at all. Personally, I find it very convenient but I guess I am in the minority.
 
Are AA the cheapest with a monthly fee? I was looking for a Voip service with free call bundle but looking at call history I don't think I will barely need it. The extra saving can be used on calls instead. I looked at voipfone.co.uk but they charge £3 (+vat) a month for ported numbers plus the porting fee.
 
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I don't know about the cheapest but I have never had a monthly bill any more than £2/£3 a month with light use, just checked in the portal and the last 4 bills have been from £1.88 to £2.49.

AAISP was about £15.00 to port the number over.

It's already paid for itself and new hardware compared to the old BT bills.
 
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