ATA with a SIP phone?

[Savario]

i'd like to use a hardware ATA in my home, and a SIP phone software for on the road. So, when I'm not using the SIP phone (or it is off line) the phone connected to the hardware ATA will ring.

I understand I can only use one at a time, I just don't want to have to manually disconnect the hardware ATA everytime I want to use the SIP software. I don't yet own a hardware ATA so I am not sure about this. Does hardware ATA automatically un-register? and re-register when it is available?

[bridonca]

With the $50 ATA settings, Freephoneline supplied you with 2 outgoing channels and one incoming channel. If you have 2 devices connected, you can make calls with both of them. The problem comes with incoming calls, the ATA might ring, or the soft phone might. It is a bit random. If you disconnect the softphone, calls will again reliably ring to the ATA.

[FONGO_steve]

With the $50 ATA settings, Freephoneline supplied you with 2 outgoing channels and one incoming channel. If you have 2 devices connected, you can make calls with both of them. The problem comes with incoming calls, the ATA might ring, or the soft phone might. It is a bit random. If you disconnect the softphone, calls will again reliably ring to the ATA.

To further elaborate on this, only one device can be registered with our server at a time. If you have two ATAs, the last one you connect will be the one that's registered. It will remain that way until the first one re-registers, then eventually the second will re-register - kicking the first offline, and it'll be a back-and-forth battle. Most ATA's have a re-registration timeout of one hour.

Most ATAs will also check for registration before initiating a call - so no matter what one you pick-up to call out of, it should register itself with the server before making the call (if it isn't the one that's currently registered).

All said and done, it will create a lot of headache because you'll never know just which ATA might ring on an incoming call.

Some of our other readers may chip in with alternative ways to do what you wish to accomplish.

[Jake]

The easiest way would be to register at pbxes.org and get the FPL set up as a trunk. Then you can register both a SIP softphone (not the FPL one, but something like the 3CX SIP softphone) and the ATA. You should be able to set it up to ring both or either one, depending on how you want it. Of course this can be changed online when you are out if you just want it to call the softphone.