VOIP - Thinking about getting it, need some help thou

[h2009]

Hi there,
im thinking about going with VOIP system for my house because at the moment i have a ISDNe2 telephone system which is on its last legs.

its very clear that the VOIP costs much less than ISDN, but im trying to find a provider which will allow me to keep my existing number (BT), and is very reliable.

My second problem is this:

Ok in some areas of my house, I dont have any way of getting a fixed ethernet cable to the rooms, so these areas are covered by wifi, but in some areas the wifi signal cannot pass through the walls and there is no ethernet cable either. In these areas i've only got your standard telephone cables, but im pretty sure that a coreless telephone signal could reach these areas.
My question is, is there a system out there for VOIP which has wifi handset, ethernet handsets, and coreless handsets or handset which can run off standard telephone cables?

What i need from VOIP:
To keep my existing telephone number
Not to lay any new cables
Keep cost to a minimum
A relieable service provider
Cheap international costs
Deciated hardware for VOIP which can plug into my existing cable router.
I need the ability, to make internal calls.

Ideally i need a system which can use standard telephone line as a backup option only.



If anyone can help with the hardware needed for this i would really be very grateful.

 

[mejinks]

I think you are confused as to what VOIP is by the sounds.

Voice over Internet Protocol is a family of technologies that enable voice communications using IP networks like the internet, it is a protocol that runs over for example your ISDN connection or a broadband connection.

I think the easiest solution for you would be to convert your ISDN line and go with an ISP such as plusnet who provide VOIP services. They have recently been taken over by BT so spending on infrastructure isn't an issue any longer.

As to your second problem, I think that a product called homeplug is what you need. It allows you to use your houses existing electrical wiring as a network.

Im reading you also have a cable router? Are you already on Virgin and you have a traditional telephone exchange based on ISDN2e? Im a bit confused as to your set up.

You can set up a dedicated computer with a clever bit of software called Asterix which allows you to run a virtual PBX at home, this will allow you to call extensions anywhere there is a data point (if you use homeplug, thats anywhere there is a plug socket).

 

[h2009]

hi there,
I understand what its all about - i've got broadband, and ISDN. Broadband is just for the internet at the moment, and ISDN is a my telephone system line - i.e. 2 incoming lines, 2 out going lines - 4 numbers, 16 user telephone system. A normal telephone line cannot support this, hense the nee for ISDN.

I want to use my cable broadband connection, for the internet and VOIP to reduce my costs. At the moment im spending in the region of 400 pounds a month on BB and ISDN.
ISDN is a major cost at about 350 pounds.

The way things are setup at the moment are very complex - and hard to put into words.
Its need someone with expert knowledge of VOIP, and the what systems are out there at the moment.

i.e. some rooms have ethernet, others have wifi, and a few other only have standard telephone wiring (hense the need for a radio telephone handset).

Homeplug wont work here, as different parts of the house, are on completely different circuits, and are not connected to each other.

 

[radderfire]

I'm not an expert on VOIP, but out of interest, do you think you could use Skype as your VOIP service? They do have the Skype In / Skype Out service but you couldn't keep your number.

Another VOIP service I'm aware of is Zen:

http://www.zen.co.uk/Voice/Broadband-Voice.aspx

I guess within your house you have to decide whether the internal range will be provided by the computer network (i.e. Wi-Fi / ethernet) or whether you are going to bring the phone service in at one point and then broadcast it (i.e. cordless phone basestation / wireless handset), right?

 

[TrX]

OK,

The open source PBX 'asterisk' will allow you to do what you want, Including Internal extension calls, using a phone line as a backup etc.

It will support any 'SIP' or 'IAX' phone as a handset (SIP and AIX are common VoIP protocols or 'data carriers'), so there are plenty of options for wired and wireless handsets
(And even adapters that turn normal PSTN phones into VOIP phones.. so you could put 'normal phones' in those rooms with only standard phone wiring. Check this out: http://www.voiptalk.org/products/Linksys+PAP2T )

Just a couple of things,
1) you will need to find a VOIP provider for connecting out onto the real telephone network (try voiptalk.org and just ask them if they can transfer your number from BT)

2) To get call quality comparable to your current ISDN setup you will need to use a high quality voice codec throughout your system. ULAW is the best option here (Also referred to as PCMU) all your client phones will have to support this codec to reap the benefits of decent call quality (Voiptalk support ULAW trunks)

3) Depending on your Internet connection, you may not have enough upload bandwidth to reliably have all 16 users on the phone at once (i'd guesstimate about 20KB/s for each ULAW call (Probably more like 10KB/s.. but its better to be safe)

4) You would need some traffic shaping on your lan... as someone hitting the downloads hard on your internet connection would pretty much kill the VoIP traffic if there was nothing in place to give voip traffic priority.

5) To use a normal phone line as a backup, you are going to need a 'PSTN Linecard' supported by Asterisk.. These aint cheap (as asterisk is free, this is how these kindof voip company's make their money *well, that and support contracts*)

Hope this helps.

//TrX

 

[h2009]

Hi TrX,
Thanks for your reply. im just looking into 'asterisk' now. I hope its easy to use!
I've found that vonage allow me to keep my number and have fairly good rates.

To get the high quality call you mention ULAW, how would i go about conbining this into asterisk?

Although in practise i will have more than 16 internal telephone sets - at any one point i doubt that more than 2 will be in use, so i think my broadband connection will be fine.

Im currently using a d-link dir-655 router, which seems to provide me with good shaping at the moment, if needed i'll get a seperate broadband connection for the VOIP.

Can i ask, have you had any experience with setting up asterisk?
And when you say you can use just about any phone with it, do they all have to be the same manufacture? Because finding wifi phones and ethernet phones all the same is very hard.


Thank you for your help.

 

[TrX]

Hi,

Asterisk is not the easiest of things to configure. There have been attempts to make it easier to install, with web configuration pages etc (see www.trixbox.org for a popular implementation). However, you are basically running your own little telephone exchange, so it's not the easiest thing you will have ever done.

Another stumbling block to watch out for, is that companies are advertising 'VoIP' as anything that can send voice over the internet, a piece of 'VoIP' kit on the internet has no guarantee of working with any other 'VoIP' kit... it is the protocols which they use which you need to be looking at (For example, kit supporting 'SIP' will work with all other kit supporting 'SIP' in theory)

By the looks of a website I have found (http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/Asterisk+and+Vonage) you may have trouble connecting vonage to your asterisk box (as they provide you their own phone, so that they can charge you for more extensions etc)

As for phone's being the same make.. NO, like I said above, it's all about if the protocol of the VoIP phone matches the protocol of the VoIP PBX (asterisk)

And as asterisk supports SIP and IAX protocols, any VoIP phones supporting SIP or IAX will work.

I personally run a TrixBox VoIP server, connected too three users in my building with two incoming PSTN telephone numbers provided by voiptalk.org

I also have 2 remote users connecting into my PBX through a VPN tunnel.
The phone I use is the grandstream GXP-2000 however my other users use allsorts from cheap ones they found on ebay, to free software that works as a voip phone (and you use a usb headset).

Hope this helps,
//TrX