Talk to me about......VOIP phones

[slim_boy_fat]

....VOIP telephones. Having just had FFTP installed at the house to replace FTTC, I'm looking to replace my BT 1500 Trio phone set-up [three handsets available in different rooms] which is connected to the new Router. I've managed to retain my landline number after some difficulty but this is less than ideal, e.g it's now activated Voicemail which I didn't activate and used the answerphone facility - can't seem to get rid of the V/mail & get the working again.

I'm considering changing to a VOIP set-up and have seen this advertised on the 'Bay CLICK HERE which according to the 'blurb for this single extension would fit the bill CLICKY ?

I've had the BT set for more years than I care to count so am new to the later offerings, seems like a decent deal to me but what do I know....? For a mobile I've been using a OnePlus 1 since they came out 14 years ago and it does everything I need in a mobile and I acknowledge I'm a Dinasour in these things. It just stopped accepting charge [original battery too] on Thursday and I suspected the charging port - took it to a local[ish] repair place and the young lad replaced the port in 10 minutes. She lives again!!

Comments/views on the potential home phone set, please.

 

[W.olly]

jesus christ, WTF is all that FFP FTTC

I like a phone that you can call somebody, does it do that lol.

 

[Stueeee]

FTTC Fibre To The Cabinet. less copper in the 'local loop' should equal higher speed. FFTP Full Fibre To (the) Premises.So ordinary phones won't work without some jiggery pokery. I'm interested to hear people's ecperiences as we are all going to be lumbered upgraded at some point.

 

[eddie49]

I am also at the start of this process, with BT dropping copper-wire landlines and phone calls being handled by VOIP.
My hard-wired phone network is all BT 431A plugs and sockets, and several of our phones are made of bakelite with chrome dials, so Pulse rather than Tone dialling! Fortunately, the switch-over has been postponed because our local telephone post is "condemned" and unsafe to climb...
Apparently what you need is a Linksys PAP2T adapter, which converts PSTN phones to VOIP.

 

[ukracer]

FTTC Fibre To The Cabinet. less copper in the 'local loop' should equal higher speed. FFTP Full Fibre To (the) Premises.So ordinary phones won't work without some jiggery pokery. I'm interested to hear people's ecperiences as we are all going to be lumbered upgraded at some point.

I thought ordinary phones will work via something like this.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Just sent the Seller a message asking them to confirm these are VOIP phones, as it's not clear [at least to me ] from the spec listed.

 

[RWD3M]

Isn't a mobile a VOIP when you have wifi calling?

We recently upgraded to fibre and got rid of the landline altogether. No more cold calling!

 

[rtcosic]

Isn't a mobile a VOIP when you have wifi calling?

We recently upgraded to fibre and got rid of the landline altogether. No more cold calling!

When we moved into our new house in 2021 we had FFTP. Only BT would supply at the time so we got a VOIP 'phone with the router. It went straight into the cupboard and has lived there ever since.
We just use our mobiles as:
a) we have more bundled calls and texts than we can ever use
b) our mobiles have WiFi calling so automatically use the internet connection when available and not mobile minutes
c) most shops, cafes, libraries, museums and even NHS facilities have free WiFi

I rarely use as much as 10 minutes of call time. Even my data lasts forever as it only seems to be used for Google Maps and some apps.

ETA: a bonus is that my wife's 3 incoming calls per day go directly to her mobile. My 3 incoming calls per quarter go to me. Spam calls mostly get filtered out or are easier to reject without needing to answer.

We used to have 1 master and 5 slaves to use as intercoms. Now if we (she) really need to, we (she) just call the other's (my) mobile. I mostly have my mobile within reach, but rarely even heard the intercom.

 

[nickk]

Good luck! Don’t know all the abbreviations or what they mean but our existing phones wouldn’t work when bt replaced the copper cables,bar stewards.so we now have internet phones that you can’t hear in the workshop,plus barely in the house. I kept the traditional one in the office as I had stored numbers,those speed dial buttons work but not redial,very annoyingly local calls require the std code included.

 

[ukracer]

Just sent the Seller a message asking them to confirm these are VOIP phones, as it's not clear [at least to me ] from the spec listed.

Just Googled the model number and it does say they are voip.
They have led screen which I don't think is needed with normal phones.

One thing you do need to check is if the voip calls are included with your current provider.

I know I need to pay for calls to whoever I register the number with.

To me it's a minefield (yet again in telecoms) designed to confuse us mere mortals.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

One thing you do need to check is if the voip calls are included with your current provider.

Aye, for the first two years part of the deal includes calls to landline and mobiles.

The set I'm watching is the C570 HX, I want to check if they're the same as the "Premium" ones you linked to.

 

[ukracer]

Aye, for the first two years part of the deal includes calls to landline and mobiles.

The set I'm watching is the C570 HX, I want to check if they're the same as the "Premium" ones you linked to.

It's a bit confusing. All the HX I can find seem to be extra handsets. And a number seem to only work in Germany.

 

[RichardM]

Have you tried plugging the phone into the VOIP socket on the router?

 

[addjunkie]

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Yealink-W78P-1302026-System-Handset-Black/dp/B0BCMZWF25?source=ps-sl-shoppingads-lpcontext&ref_=fplfs&psc=1&smid=A3P5ROKL5A1OLE

These are the ones we have!

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Just an update on my phone problem. A bit of logic was applied by Dumbo here and I realised that if I plugged another phone into the router it would establish if it would work.
So I bought a basic no frills or answer machine corded phone for £10, plugged it in and it works. Who would thought my previous DECT setup would fail to coincide with the FFTP installation..... .

I've ordered the Gigaset I linked in post #1 so I should be good to go as previously.
Thanks for all the input , appreciated. I'm off to sit in a corner with the pointy hat of shame on my head.

 

[aesmith]

Not quite clear what you already have. The Gigaset products in your first post are DECT handsets, which need to talk to a DECT base station. They're not VoIP themselves, but will work with VoIP if the base supports it.

To give a concrete example we had a conventional landline with Gigaset DECT answering machine and additional handset. When we converted to VoIP I bought a repacement base (Gigaset N300A) which supported the VoIP function (specifically SIP) and worked with our existing Gigaset handsets. So the change from analogue landline to IP meant i had to change the base, not the handsets.

If your router has a telephone socket (maybe identified as FXS) then your existing DECT base should work.

Gigaset have a good handset to bass compatibility web page here ..

Products | Gigaset

innovative products: DECT Phones✓ Smartphones✓ & Smart Home Systems✓ ❖ Choose product now! ❖

www.gigaset.com

 

[Turbo]

When we got FTTP installed we were told that any modern DECT phone will work with voip as long as you have the voip box fitted.

 

[Farside]

After a couple of years messing around with bogus Cisco / Linksys VoIP boxes, I eventually bought a Grandstream stand-alone VoIP desktop phone and it just plugs into the LAN and works seamlessly. The VoIP deal I have with it is outgoing calls only, and calls are dirt cheap - a tenner lasts me a year. Incoming calls come straight to my mobile handset.

 

[slim_boy_fat]

Not quite clear what you already have.

It is was a BT Edge Trio which died on me.

 

[ukracer]

When we got FTTP installed we were told that any modern DECT phone will work with voip as long as you have the voip box fitted.

I am sure that is most likely correct. The key is having a number allocated to your voip box which I assume is a unique Ip address.
When I used 3CX software there were a lot of cheap providers. Now they are loosing the landline business they are starting to make up bundles and charge a lot more.