Ditching analog phone for VOIP solution

[The_Ogre]

Inspired by this thread by SauronZA, I've been thinking about something.

Similarly to him we hardly ever use our home phone to call and its only the odd couple of nights a week we would call my or my wife's parents. Its mostly used to receive calls.

So I've been wondering if its possible to get one of these to manage the PSTN side of things and sign up for a VoIP account with whoever provides a decent service.

Then I'd use an old PC (or a RaspPi which is gathering dust, doubt its powerful enough) and install asterisk or some similar software to do the routing etc. Lastly I'd then get some freeware SIP clients for our Android phones and set these up.

The way I'd prefer it to work is once a call comes in over the PSTN, the calls would be routed via Wifi to both our phones. That's for all incoming calls.

All outgoing calls should be routed over the Internet/VoIP, since, having spent the last couple of minutes at the call tariffs VoIP seems to be quite a bit cheaper than Telkom.

Is this a feasible option? I'm pretty much a n00b when it comes to VoIP

 

[The_Ogre]

Hmmm, nobody done this yet? Or thought on doing something similar?

 

[ScrnScrm]

My advise would be to get a Billion router with the PABX functionality built in. You can then route inbound analogue or SIP trunks to analogue or SIP extentions. Problem solved

 

[The_Ogre]

My advise would be to get a Billion router with the PABX functionality built in. You can then route inbound analogue or SIP trunks to analogue or SIP extentions. Problem solved

Coincidentally, I have one. After battling to get the VPN feature to work I tossed it into a cupboard and used a Dlink which was simpler to configure.

 

[Franna]

Who is the best VOIP provider to use for a SIP account and ported number in RSA. Would like to do everything online and not send faxes or letters in the mail to open an account.

 

[GoneWithTheWindows]

Easy solution for this -

3CX free version, allows max 2 simultaneous calls, should be fine for home use. Couple with a SIP Account from ICT Globe.

 

[georgegolding]

Who is the best VOIP provider to use for a SIP account and ported number in RSA. Would like to do everything online and not send faxes or letters in the mail to open an account.

Hi Franna, we offer the entire process online, we offer a 3 user Cloud PBX solution starting at R195 per month including reporting, self management and remote support. www.euphoria.co.za contact us we will assist you and make the whole process easy.

 

[voyssa]

Inspired by this thread by SauronZA, I've been thinking about something.

Similarly to him we hardly ever use our home phone to call and its only the odd couple of nights a week we would call my or my wife's parents. Its mostly used to receive calls.

So I've been wondering if its possible to get one of these to manage the PSTN side of things and sign up for a VoIP account with whoever provides a decent service.

Then I'd use an old PC (or a RaspPi which is gathering dust, doubt its powerful enough) and install asterisk or some similar software to do the routing etc. Lastly I'd then get some freeware SIP clients for our Android phones and set these up.

The way I'd prefer it to work is once a call comes in over the PSTN, the calls would be routed via Wifi to both our phones. That's for all incoming calls.

All outgoing calls should be routed over the Internet/VoIP, since, having spent the last couple of minutes at the call tariffs VoIP seems to be quite a bit cheaper than Telkom.

Is this a feasible option? I'm pretty much a n00b when it comes to VoIP

It might work, but it's quite an elaborate solution with quite a few potential points of failure. Please also note that although softphones are great in theory, softphones and WIFI are a bit of an unreliable combination.

Have you considered porting your number to an established VoIP provider and getting one or two SIP accounts from that provider instead? It won't break the bank.

If your router has an ATA - in other words can convert the VoIP signal to an analog phone signal - you can set it up with a SIP account and plug in your existing PSTN phone in the telephone port at the back of the router.

 

[The_Ogre]

It might work, but it's quite an elaborate solution with quite a few points of failure. Please also note that although softphones are great in theory, softphones and WIFI are a bit of an unreliable combination.

Have you considered porting your number to an established VoIP provider and getting one or two SIP accounts from that provider instead? It won't break the bank.

If your router has an ATA - in other words can convert the VoIP signal to an analog phone signal - you can set it up with a SIP account and plug in your existing PSTN phone in the telephone port at the back of the router.

That, in part, is the reason I want to do this as pointed out above. I want to get rid of the landline phone.

 

[Lino]

That, in part, is the reason I want to do this as pointed out above. I want to get rid of the landline phone.

Same here. I have tried to get it working on my Billion as well for the hell of it and it's an absolute pain.