Jimk wrote:
Jimk Wrote in message:
Theo Wrote in message:
Jimk wrote:
Thinking I'll dump my land line & go 4g at my next renewal of ISP.
I "never" use the landline for calls. But if I wanted to, could I
connect a normal phone to use the interweb kind of like VoIP? If
so how?
Yes. You have roughly two options:
An Analogue Telephone Adapter (ATA) is a box you plug a wired landline phone
into, and the box then plugs into your router. There are a number of
vendors. Sometimes they can be incorporated into your router.
A combined ATA and DECT base station that connects to DECT cordless phones
but plugs into your router rather than your telephone socket. Gigaset
and FritzBox in particular specialise in these.
(I appreciate it wouldn't work if the 4g internet was down.)
Indeed. A different option is a 'cellular terminal' which looks like a
landline phone but uses the mobile network instead of a landline. That gets
you the creature comforts of a landline desk phone (good speakerphone etc,
pick up handset to answer, ability to plug in a headset, etc) but using
mobile calls rather than landline or mobile data.
Theo
Ok so keeping it simple for now...
On eBay i see a "Cisco ATA 186 Analog Telephone Adaptor" for 20
odd quid... worthy?
Also* if I had the old *phone plugged into this to make a call, what is
shown on the caller display at the recipients end?
How would they call me back say?
The number plan for VOIP is separate from your analog POTS setup.
The systems don't particularly start up, by knowing about one another.
*******
Take my case.
I had an analog phone at 12345.
I purchase a VOIP box.
I tell the ISP I'm going to be getting my VOIP
services from, to "pull my number".
The ISP gives me 56789 as a temporary phone number.
If I have two analog phone handsets, I plug one
into the VOIP box, I plug the other into the RJ11 POTS,
and I dial 56789 from the old (12345, analog) phone,
the VOIP box phone rings.
Two weeks later, the "pull" is activated at midnight.
Now, the analog phone is... dead. I'm not paying for
service, so service is cut at midnight.
At midnight, the VOIP server at the ISP changes out
the temporary number from 56789, to 12345. Now, I
have "number portability", I've pulled my well known
phone number to the VOIP server, and people who call
me at the old number, the VOIP phone now rings.
For two weeks during the transition, I was making
calls between the two phones as part of debugging.
I tried several different encoder settings in the
VOIP webpage, until I had a nice one. I also tried
different networking boxes setups (where I plug in the
VOIP box), for best operation when a download is
happening at the same time as the phone call.
*******
It's possible to set up dual ring, on both the
analog POTS phone and the VOIP phone. But, you'd be
paying for two services. You would have a bill for the
POTS, which is likely 5x more expensive than the VOIP bill.
*******
You can use your ISP for a VOIP service, or there can be
external providers who are not your ISP.
You would get some details from your new provider, whoever
it is, and they would be filled in here. That's the web
interface on the ATA. The example is an ATA which happens
to be 172.16.1.2, and is being configured from a computer
at 172.16.1.3 on the same subnet LAN and router box.
https://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/suppor...-ata-sccp.html
Whether you do a pull and use number portability (killing
your old phone), or, you get a brand new phone number
that's never been used before, the ATA needs *some* POTS-like
phone number, so you can receive calls on the VOIP box.
When I set mine up, I had to buy an additional analog phone
during the testing period. Good thing I did, as since then
the original phone died, and I'm using the "spare" for the
VOIP now. The phone was not wasted, after all. If I could
get the old phone apart, I could fix it.
Paul