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I have four phone numbers on two analog lines:

Number A - business
Number B - fax (Ident-A-Call number on Number A)
Number C - personal
Number D - spouse (Ident-A-Call number on Number C)

I would like to convert these to VoIP. I've asked for suggestions for the best ATA at: viewtopic.php?f=14&t=16970&p=66482#p66482 .

Now I'm wondering if I should simply get Internet or SIP/digital phones instead of an ATA since my spouse and I live in a small place and we only really need the phones in one room (my home office). However, I'm not familiar with Internet or SIP phones. Can anyone suggest if this is the better way to go and if so, which Internet or SIP phones would be the best?

I currently have a Nortel Venture analog phone that handles multiple lines. It's easy to conference two lines together and it has a nice speaker and microphone. Is there an Internet or SIP phone that is comparable to this? (This is a nice-to-have, but not a must-have.)

More info on what I'd like to set up:

When I make outgoing calls, I want to show a different number between my business and personal calls. Therefore, I'm thinking of forwarding Number B to Number A and Number D to Number C. Then I'll buy Unlock Keys for Number A and Number C.

For now, I'm not concerned about my fax machine being able to detect the incoming call, because I rarely receive faxes. When I do get a fax, I've just talked to the sender and I will manually get the fax machine to answer the call. But I do want to keep my fax phone number, in case the situation changes in the future. Am I correct to assume that if I want to use my fax machine, I will be forced to use an ATA and ditch the Internet/SIP phone idea?

When people phone for my spouse versus me, we would like to know the difference. With our analog landline, my spouse's phone number is an "Ident-A-Call" number, which means that calls to her number will ring on my personal line, but with a different ring pattern (2 short rings and 1 long ring). Can the Internet/SIP phone be set up so that the when callers call Number D, the Internet/SIP phone will ring with a different ring pattern or ringtone?

I think the Idental-call thing is probably the only thing you might have trouble with unless you use a PBX (I read your other post regarding this though).

The fax is easy to take care of, if you just receive them. Just port your number to FPL and then set up your voicemail to send a copy to your email address. Do not forward the number to any other number. Now when a fax comes in the FPL system will create a nice PDF of the fax and email it to you. Sending faxes over VOIP can be a tricky thing, so if it is important to you I would suggest utilising an online service especially if your faxes are long or complicated as they could have a high fail send rate.

This should leave you with just getting one ATA and putting Number A on line 1 of the ATA, forwarding Number D to Number C, and putting Number C on line 2 of your ATA. This would mean you will need two phones plugged into the ATA, one for Number A and one for Number C/D. As I mentioned, you will loose the Identa-Call though.

I do not know your phone you have now, but from your post I am assuming it will allow you to plug to two different wall jacks. If so you can use it as you are now and just plug the phone into both jacks on the ATA. If your phone allows 3 lines to be connected, then you could buy two ATAs and the unlock key for Number D, then set up Number D on line 1 of ATA #2 and plug that into your phone. You may be able to pick a different ringtone on the phone which will sort of bring you back to your indenta-call.

I would suggest that the money you are paying now for those 4 lines will soon compensate for any monies you have to spend setting this up initially. Also consider that you can do this in small steps. porting all 4 numbers is obviously a high priority and there will not really be a way around that initially. Buying an ATA will be a core thing on the list also. After that you can decide how many unlock keys you want to buy and what numbers to forward to what, if any. You can for now forward Number D to C which will save you the extra cost of an unlock key and ATA (but loosing the indenta-call), and then later buy these and separate things out a bit more. You know your current phone better than I though to know how well this would work. Having 3 phones stuck on the side is obviously not the way to go, but if you can condense all 3 into one phone.

I wrote all that out, which I feel is still fairly valid, but then I realised that an easier option would be to just buy a multi line Voip phone, something like this >http://www.grandstream.com/index.php/products/ip-voice-telephony/enterprise-ip-phones/gxp2130
That phone will allow you to connect 3 different SIP account to it (it's bigger brothers will allow more if needed). So there you would need to buy the unlock key for each number you want to connect to it (remember the fax does not need to come to the phone) and set up each number on a different line on the phone. You can also do that in stages if you do not want to buy 3 unlock keys right of the bat by forwarding Number D to C until a later date.

I am not recommending that phone, I have not had any dealings with it and there are many more on the market. I do know Grandstream make fairly good products and that is just one that turned up in my search. Personally I would do a bit of review searching for a few phone models before picking one.

Jake:

Thanks for your reply and your suggestions.

That's a good suggestion about the fax.

With a VoIP phone, such as the Grandstream GXP2130, am I correct to assume that I connect my internet (ethernet) to the VoIP phone and will not require any other hardware or software? With Freephoneline.ca's Unlock Key, I should be able to log into Grandstream to set up the SIP account?

Am I correct to assume that any VoIP phone should work with Freephoneline.ca?

Short answer, yes. But as I say, do a bit od research first. Get the model number of a phone that looks good and google it, look for reviews, set up guides, problems and such. As long as it allows you to add in your SIP information you will be able to use it with your unlock key.

If anyone knows differently then I would hope they will correct me

The Grandstream GXP2130 looks to be a Freephoneline compatible SIP VOIP phone according to the specs. Grandstream devices have a history of being Freephoneline friendly.

Thanks for your inputs.

I tried to find out if the Grandstream phone supports Google Voice, but I don't think it does. Does anyone know of a VoIP phone that supports Google Voice?

Does anyone know how the voice quality compares between POTS versus ATA versus VoIP phone?

The Grandstream GXP2200 http://www.grandstream.com/index.php/pr ... es/gxp2200 looks to support google voice, being that it is an Android phone. Never personally tested it out so I cannot be sure.

As for the POTS versus ATA versus VoIP, there are too many variables to consider. For most people they should sound the same, but interference, codec quality, and handset quality, all have more of an effect on voice quality than the method of transport.

I'm now looking to help someone replace his analog phone with Freephoneline. Can anyone recommend a cheap SIP or Internet phone for one line?

Does anyone know if the following phones work with Fongo/Freephoneline?:

Avaya SW IP (http://www.kijiji.ca/v-phone-tablet-oth ... 1073232407)
Grandstream GXP 1400 2 line SIP (http://www.kijiji.ca/v-phone-tablet-oth ... nFlag=true)
Cisco CP-7940G 2-line IP Phone
Cisco 7642G
Sipura SPA-841 IP Phone (http://www.kijiji.ca/v-home-phone-answe ... nFlag=true)

They should all work, but I would get the Grandstream out of those options. The other gear can be twitchy.

bridonca wrote:They should all work, but I would get the Grandstream out of those options. The other gear can be twitchy.

I plan to have one SIP number. Is it possible to connect two of these SIP phones to my ethernet router and have my one SIP number go to both phones?

If you have a PBX set up, for sure. Set the PBX to have 2 outgoing trunks and one incoming trunk, and as long as you do not have caller saturation, all is good. If you do not want to set up a PBX, you can set up the same account on 2 ATA devices, and you should be able to make 2 simultaneous outgoing calls. The catch is that you can only receive 1 incoming call, and it is not certain which device will receive it.

I should also note that what I am talking about is a hack, and you should never talk to tech support about if you have an issue. I am sure they know about it, but it is not exactly sanctioned either.

bridonca wrote:If you have a PBX set up, for sure. Set the PBX to have 2 outgoing trunks and one incoming trunk, and as long as you do not have caller saturation, all is good. If you do not want to set up a PBX, you can set up the same account on 2 ATA devices, and you should be able to make 2 simultaneous outgoing calls. The catch is that you can only receive 1 incoming call, and it is not certain which device will receive it.

I should also note that what I am talking about is a hack, and you should never talk to tech support about if you have an issue. I am sure they know about it, but it is not exactly sanctioned either.

Thanks for your input. PBX sounds like it is beyond my capabilities. My understanding is that ATA are adapters for IP to analog, so that analog phones can connect to the ATA. Is that correct? Instead of ATA devices, what about SIP phones (which should preclude the need for ATA)? Is it possible to connect two of these SIP phones to my ethernet router and have my one SIP number go to both phones?

curt wrote:

bridonca wrote:If you have a PBX set up, for sure. Set the PBX to have 2 outgoing trunks and one incoming trunk, and as long as you do not have caller saturation, all is good. If you do not want to set up a PBX, you can set up the same account on 2 ATA devices, and you should be able to make 2 simultaneous outgoing calls. The catch is that you can only receive 1 incoming call, and it is not certain which device will receive it.

I should also note that what I am talking about is a hack, and you should never talk to tech support about if you have an issue. I am sure they know about it, but it is not exactly sanctioned either.

Thanks for your input. PBX sounds like it is beyond my capabilities. My understanding is that ATA are adapters for IP to analog, so that analog phones can connect to the ATA. Is that correct? Instead of ATA devices, what about SIP phones (which should preclude the need for ATA)? Is it possible to connect two of these SIP phones to my ethernet router and have my one SIP number go to both phones?

Hi,

I read this post a few times and I am still not clear what you are trying to achieve.

I think Bridonca is right, you need a small PBX for this.

I hope by reading this post a few more times I will probably get some meaning of what *exactly* you are trying to achieve with these 2 lines.

re->PBX sounds like it is beyond my capabilities.

Even though it sounds very complicated- it could be a really nice project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqln1lRvHrk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XRJtubyXmU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no0KtRISrqo



regards,

Fongo Support wrote:Hi,

I read this post a few times and I am still not clear what you are trying to achieve.

I think Bridonca is right, you need a small PBX for this.

I hope by reading this post a few more times I will probably get some meaning of what *exactly* you are trying to achieve with these 2 lines.

re->PBX sounds like it is beyond my capabilities.

Even though it sounds very complicated- it could be a really nice project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqln1lRvHrk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XRJtubyXmU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=no0KtRISrqo



regards,

My current question is the following:

"I plan to have one SIP number. Is it possible to connect two of these SIP phones to my ethernet router and have my one SIP number go to both phones?"

I want to have two SIP phones connected via ethernet to my router and for both of my SIP phones to use one SIP number/account. Is this possible without a PBX? (Unfortunately, I don’t currently have the time for a project.)

Re->I plan to have one SIP number. Is it possible to connect two of these SIP phones to my ethernet router and have my one SIP number go to both phones?"

Yes iut is possible.

Please try this:

1. Go to your favorite Kijiji or online store. (http://astore.amazon.ca/fongo-20?_encoding=UTF8&node=1)
2. Buy a Desktop phone
3. Create FPL account and purchase voip key
4. Configure account on device you purchased at Step#2.
5. If everything is working in no longer than 3 minutes, proceed to step 6.
6. Create second FPL account and purchase voip key
7. Buy another phone or configure account 2 on second line of device 1
8. If everything is working in less than 5 minutes, proceed to step 9.
9. Login into each account and order porting
10. Once porting is complete, login into the devices and update to the ported number.
11. Start saving money

If none of these are not working for you, try to look for different options or providers.

regards,

regards,

Fongo Support wrote:Re->I plan to have one SIP number. Is it possible to connect two of these SIP phones to my ethernet router and have my one SIP number go to both phones?"

Yes iut is possible.

Please try this:

1. Go to your favorite Kijiji or online store. (http://astore.amazon.ca/fongo-20?_encoding=UTF8&node=1)
2. Buy a Desktop phone
3. Create FPL account and purchase voip key
4. Configure account on device you purchased at Step#2.
5. If everything is working in no longer than 3 minutes, proceed to step 6.
6. Create second FPL account and purchase voip key
7. Buy another phone or configure account 2 on second line of device 1
8. If everything is working in less than 5 minutes, proceed to step 9.
9. Login into each account and order porting
10. Once porting is complete, login into the devices and update to the ported number.
11. Start saving money

If none of these are not working for you, try to look for different options or providers.

regards,

regards,

Aren't you suggesting that I buy two VoIP/SIP numbers/accounts? I was wondering if it's possible to have two devices/phones use one and the same VoIP/SIP number/account.

curt wrote:
Aren't you suggesting that I buy two VoIP/SIP numbers/accounts? I was wondering if it's possible to have two devices/phones use one and the same VoIP/SIP number/account.

Hi,

No, that is not possible.

Please see Jake's reply below which explains it:

viewtopic.php?f=10&t=9176&hilit=typical#p49418

Looks like FPL will not work for you.

perhaps Mango can suggest something for your requirements- as of myself I am out of options.

regards,