A bit More about VoIP...

The VoIP age is dawning! What does that mean? Well, BT the UK phone and electronics company has decided in its infinite(!) wisdom that they will get rid of all copper lines. Interesting, no? As most UK telephones are still linked by copper cables it will be an interesting project, especially as this is supposed to culminate and finish in 2025. My innards are shouting, I don’t believe it! Any project of that magnitude is bound to take:

a. A long time and b. An even longer time than you thought of first.

On top of that do we believe BT or the government will pay for all of that? Well, let’s accept that the work will start and that in some way or other Johnnie Public will pay for it.

But what is the rationale of all that? Indeed, the Internet has seen massive growth in all sorts of fields and telephony is not different. VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) is fast growing, loads of businesses already have such systems installed. And as mentioned in another post so have I. I cannot accept the mess that BT’s decision is going to cause so I started by researching what is involved. It is relatively simple, there are two ways it can be done. Firstly you can buy a cheap adapter which you will attach to a powerpoint in your house somewhere or attach it to the router. It needs to be set up with your router via radio signals or a cable. Much like range extenders. You can then make calls and use your ordinary phones. So, it also means you need a broadband connection. Secondly, you may buy a VoIP system, ready to use. I bought a Grandstream DP750 with two handsets. It took a day or so to figure out how to set it up but you do need an account with a VoIP service provider. There are already a number of these in the UK. These companies will instruct you how to set it up and link to their service. ‘Some’ based in Britain have a very good web based dashboard on which you will find all the things you must initiate for the service to work. If you have a single handset it will be easy, set up your profile (Just 'profile1'), enter the SIP address (SIP123.vo-ip-uk or something like that). Next move to the SIP account page and enter under profile1 the extension number allocated. For the single phone that would most likely be your telephone number, a hyphen then followed by 1000. So, 123456-1000. In the Authenticate field you put the same number. Copy your password from the Dashboard and paste that in the Password field. As far as the Name is concerned, use anything you like. Cost? The line per month is just about a few quid and telephone calls are in pennies per minute pending who you phone and for how long. You can phone abroad but you would need a separate additional arrangement.

It all can be seen on your computer screen via entering the IP number of the Phone base station. (like 192.168.1.20:80) the 80 is the network port over which the phone traffic goes. You might not have to enter that, just the IP address. Change the address/address panel with your name and own password. Basically that’s it. Cost overall? Just about £100 from Amazon. It is possible your router or modem uses a different entry code of addresses. Some start with 10.xx.xx.xx others with 172.xx.xx.xx, just be careful. If you need two phones then it means a bit of extra work to set it up. You need to decide how the handsets are to be linked, ring separately or together? In any case you will need to set up a Call Group. Put both lines (the 1000 and 1001) into the Call Group and point your DP750 telephone number to the Call Group. Both phones will now ring at the same time and the one who picked up can answer and the other just goes back to stand by and stops ringing.

The fun thing is I cannot see BT doing all of that, most people will end up with mediocre quality adapters and an increased charge for the broadband service. BT is not the cheapest kiddie on the block! I calculate through having bought my own proper VoIP equipment the cost will be paid back within two years. Because BT charges something like £45 for a line and broadband when I will pay £27 and furthermore if I want to port my old number to the VoIP service provider the broadband service is even cheaper. Saving another £2 or £3 per month. Careful though as not all broadband companies will do that. No porting, siree! So, good luck, don’t wait for BT, it’ll cost you! One last thing, watch out for the porting your number thing. It means you lose broadband. It’s OK when you use another ISP service provider but again not all will port a number. Vodaphone wont as they use their own network and not Openreach (BT). If you port it to a VoIP provider you will have to find another ISP afterwards. Or the same one if they allow it. Cheers.

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