In reply to a post by Pheasant:

Good point. I was definitely thinking of the domestic hub. As such it should all work via the Ubiquiti.

Mine works through the UDM-Pro, then USW-24-Gen2 switch and fully visible, with stats in the Network Management pages.


I have both the BT provided Yealink W60B and a Gigaset N300A-IP connected that way.

Edited by MHC (Thu 01-Jul-21 10:29:27)

The only issue I could see would be that I thought on the business product you would keep the same WAN IP on the 4G failover.
So the 4G failover being on all the time may cause issues.

Thanks
Dan

In reply to a post by MHC:

I have both the BT provided Yealink W60B and a Gigaset N300A-IP connected that way.

The Gigaset looks ideal as will keep the PSTN line for business until I am 100% that VOIP beats it (DAB still demonstrably worse than FM shows not everything digital is better). If I could run one set of handsets for both landline and VOIP that would be great. I guess I would have to spring for an alternative VOIP provider to test and just plain ignore the BT digital line.

None of the costs really bother me as the value of a successful call far outweighs cost of service. Not managing to take a customer call or having it drop out costs £££.

What handsets do you use.

Dave

I have a Gigaset N300A-IP which handles 5 x VoIP + 1 copper PSTN

There are five handsets - three models:

SL450H - small and compacy
C620H - OK
S850H - larger

For long calls the S850H and you can rest on te shoulder, the SL450 is nice too. The C620 - utility ones and only have them as they were part of the original deal.

My last purchase was: https://www.ligo.co.uk/siemens-gigaset-sl450a-go-cor... the base is shown as a "GO" but that is what it tends to be referred when supplied as a kit.

You can direct lines to specific phones if you wish and there are three answer phones built in, so differing incoming numbers can go to each.

I no longer have PSTN - all VoIP and no issues with it.


You just need to make sure it is the N300A-IP or "GO" and not the N300

Edited by MHC (Thu 01-Jul-21 12:26:12)

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

So £7.50/month for failover protection and a free VOIP line which I can learn about VOIP with on a no pressure basis.

The BT VoIP solution (business or residential) is I'm sure quite a good service in itself, but it is for all intents and purposes very much a "walled garden" solution. There is not really any scope to use your own VoIP capable adapters, DECT bases or for that matter an Asterisk-type (software PBX) solution. All of which can offer incredible versatility and richness in the types of voice solutions that can de delivered and deployed on whatever hardware and software you like. I would say your learning about VOIP would be very limited if you're simply using BT's voice solution.

In my experience and opinion a 'better' solution (when one wants a bit more than just a couple of vanilla handsets and a basic service), is to try an independent third party VOIP service provider. In this way you can run telephone/voice as just another service (like email or web hosting) over whatever provider and type of internet connection you have, at minimal (or potentially zero) monthly ongoing cost.

If you wish to be able to "roam" and receive and make calls over the VoIP 'landlines' - by that I mean roam either on your internal wifi network or for that matter anywhere your smartphone can get mobile service - I would recommend that you investigate the Acrobits Groundwire smartphone apps. These are a fresh generation of smartphone app that enable effectively seamless connectivity to your VOIP provider. The very important thing is that the app DOES NOT have to run in the background on your smartphone to enable calls to be received. Instead the VOIP registration is 'held' permanently open by the Acrobits servers to your VOIP provider. The phone then uses the "native" push services within iOS and Android to receive the calls. This saves battery life on your phone, as its just another push notification service and works seamlessly whether your phone is connected by WiFi or via the mobile network. It honestly works brilliantly.

Yes agreed.

Note the £7.50 is only the amortised 'free' three months from Talk Talks best offer (which someone pointed out was cheaper than BT) and I'm actually paying £3 more than now (Cerberus) for 900Mbps rather than 300Mbps.

I guess I need to get over the two [censored] experiences I have had with VOIP. Main was circa 10-years ago at a software company I worked for. Dropped calls, stuttering sound, missed calls, clients unable to call. I had to pull the sales team off and insist they only used their mobiles it was that embarrassing. IT were working with provider to improve things for months and months.
And the other a trial service with YAY probably 3-years ago. Call quality when on mobile using the App was dreadful;. It might be signal issues given we are rural. But then if the signal is no good I'd rather not take a call then frustrate the caller with [censored] quality. We only used it to trial between safe parties but wouldn't have wanted it as my main phone.

The Gigaset hardware looks ideal as can support multiple DECT stations which will help around the house. (think large old mill house with solid walls). We don't need a mega solution as the only employees with access to the phone are myself and the wife (gardeners and cleaners aren't taking calls). So our tech requirement is low. My desire for it to be as glitch free as the copper line is the biggest requirement.

Thanks for the pointer to Acrobits, I 'll check that out.

In reply to a post by F00tS0re:

The Gigaset hardware looks ideal as can support multiple DECT stations which will help around the house. (think large old mill house with solid walls). We don't need a mega solution as the only employees with access to the phone are myself and the wife (gardeners and cleaners aren't taking calls). So our tech requirement is low. My desire for it to be as glitch free as the copper line is the biggest requirement.

I used Gigaset N300A IP bases for a a good few years. They are a neat solution and pretty flexible with the capacity to use multiple VoIP accounts and have a PSTN connection as well.

DECT in a domestic situation is usually excellent. Much better signal penetration and range than WiFi.

On a larger deployments, possibly outdoors with range and signal concerns, I would look closely at what is actually possible with multiple DECT base stations etc. It's not necessarily going to be an 'out of the box' solution and getting DECT handsets to roam, and automatically connect to a particular base may require some work.

If you can get either of decent WiFi cover or decent mobile (data) service, with your phone, the Acrobits solution should work well. For the one of cost of the app (they do a resi and a business version) which is around a tenner and sign up to a free VOIP sub with a landline number from Sipgate (Basic service) you should be able to test whether its viable and workable now.

It sounds as though you have a large area to cover. There are Gigaset repeater which work seamlessly: https://www.ligo.co.uk/gigaset-repeater

From memory this is what I did to set up.

Home Hub:
connect the wifi dongle to the USB
and connect a laptop to the LAN side of things to configure.
login to portal - you should see that the EE connection is active.
Disable wireless
Disable DHCP
Change allocated IP to 192.168.10.1 (you can use whatever you want ) and subnet 255.255.255.0 (you'll then need to manually change the laptop to match the range to finish configuring).
Firewall - Disable
Add 192.168.10.2 to DMZ (not sure if this bit is essential but did it).

UDM Pro

You should already have set up WAN1 as your PPPoE so nothing to change here.

Insert the SFP to RJ45 into port 10 (labelled WAN2) and plug HH into this.
Go to settings - Internet > WAN2 (edit)
Leave all settings as default and go to IPv4 Connection section
Connection - Static IP
IP Address - 192.168.10.2 (as in DMZ setting on hub)
Subnet - 255.255.255.0
Router 192.168.10.1
Click Apply changes and the settings should update. Test that it fails over by pulling the connection into WAN 1.

I didn't try and set up IPv6 on the failover as didn't see much point as v4 works and is there as backup.