Digital voice or VOIP - which one to choose?

I am facing a dilemma that I am sure many others have faced due to the demise of the analog telephone line in the UK. I am dealing with an elderly parents phone line and I want to e sure that everything is covered and not too complicated for my parent to use. The local authority will be moving the Telecare service to one that has a mobile SIM and connects to a mobile network so that should be sorted hopefully.

However, there is also the landline and broadband contract which is coming to its end in a few weeks. I had intended to just install a VOIP ATA box and plug the existing DECT phone into it. However, I have had an ATA and VOIP facility for some time already myself and have had a lot of problems with navigating menu systems on the remote end that will simply not respond to any button presses despite various tweaks being suggested by the very helpful VOIP provider. On the other hand, a VOIP program on the PC works without issue, which means that the problem is definitely down to the ATA. Obviously I cannot leave my elderly parent in such a situation where she is unable to select the menu options when she calls the GP practice or the local authority or anyone else. The ATA solution is just too unreliable. Mum has never used a computer either so a software solution would also be a non starter.

The existing BB provider does no longer provides a contract with a landline facility, which means that she will need to switch to Digtal Voice with their partner company (BT - now EE) - or else to a VOIP provider. The issues are these:

a) BT/EE digital voice - convenient - just plug in the existing DECT phone that mum is familiar with to the EE router, but poor reviews for EE support, but I don't like the fact that its a proprietary technology that locks you into their router etc

b) VOIP - open technology with options and should work fine when using a VOIP/SIP phone, but Yealink handsets don't come cheap and I have yet to find any alternatives. I have no experience with them and am unsure whether they have accessibility features like amplification for example?

Consequently I am not sure at the moment which option to choose.

So my questions are these:

a) are people generally happy with "digital voice" and is it reliable?

b) does anyone have experience of the Yealink handsets and are there any alternatives?

c) the Telcare should have its own battery I think, but given that we will loose the ability for the phone handset to be powered from the telephone line, should I get battery backup for the router and any handset base?

I would appreciate any comments.

The only (initial) problem I had upgrading from a fibre/copper and analogue phone (DECT) to full fibre from Vodafone was a simple connector issue.

My original telephone system used the old BT master socket system and my wired phone system just plugged in. When the new Fibre/VoIP Router turned up I simply plugged my RJ45 network cable in.

The telephone transition needed an RJ11 connection from the back of my router to a free BT connector and I had one but it didn't work. The supplied RJ11/RJ11 didn't match anything I had and the installers cleared off before I found out. Turned out, while my old system used an RJ11 pins 2&5 to BT the router/modem RJ11 telephone socket used 3&4 both ends. My solution was to update to an RJ11 Euro panel socket hard wired on to my home wiring making for a tidy solution.

My telephone works exactly as before, any configuration happened at their end. Caller ID works as before but, as you might see from my other post today, my DECT Answerphone doesn't recognise the 400Hz caller hang up tone expecting instead the long established line current break to signal caller hang. My expensive DECT Answerphone is now stuffed by blind progress.

The thing is, one would expect anyone providing a new VoIP system to seamlessly replace a hundred year old system would both understand how the old system worked and make bloody sure his new one worked the same but no.

I think I may have solved the problem with DTMF not being passed. My SPA112 has the "DTMF Tx Method" set to "InBand". Having read up a bit more on the subject and seeing that `DTMF Process INFO` and `DTMF process AVT` are both set to `On`' I simply tried the INFO, AVT and INFO+AVT methods. Switching to INFO didn't do anything, but switching to AVT actually worked as did INFO+AVT, so it seems that the AVT method is the one needed. I can now press the 1,2,3 or whatever whatever button and the remote menu system now responds as it should do.

The curious thing is that A&A advice setting to "InBand". So what does this actually mean? And why didn't it work? Does the DTMF method depend on the handset or the VOIP provider?

BTW, I have also learned that the SPA112 has a major vulnerability with a CVT of 9.0, so I might be replacing this with a Grandstream. My SPA112 is behind the router although I do have a port re-direction rule set up for port 5060 to bypass NAT. I don't think this puts my SPA112 at risk because the vulnerability affects the management portal which cannot be reached from the outside.

If the Grandstream works OK, then I will try it at my parent's house for a while to see how it goes. Its much cheaper than spending 200GBP for a VOIP base and a couple of handsets. If I run into trouble then I will consider the handsets. I realise this is a bit of a U-turn, but if the problem I had with the ATA can be fixed by changing a setting, then I am beginning to think that I might have been a little mis-lead about ATA's?

Talktalk supplied us with a Grand stream ATA, plugged our old Panny Dect phone into it and it seemed to work fine. After porting to A&A tried to reconfigure the ATA, but no luck, it wouldn't respond to ***, not sure if TT have it locked down, or there's some other reason like being older Dect phone, so if your house phone can reconfigure the ATA be prepared to use that phone to reconfigure for your parents line.

Rather than using the existing ATA with DV or a VOIP provider, I'd very much recommend getting a VOIP capable DECT basestation and either using the existing handsets or getting new handsets as well.

I've used a Gigaset N300A IP based setup for around 10 years and it outperforms ATAs for call clarity and lack of echo as there's no need for 2 wire/4 wire conversion. It's no longer made but Gigaset have the N610IP and Yealink have alternatives.

In reply to a post by ferretuk:

Rather than using the existing ATA with DV or a VOIP provider, I'd very much recommend getting a VOIP capable DECT basestation and either using the existing handsets or getting new handsets as well.

Thank you for your post.

I was advised that elsewhere as well although I wasn't sure if it was a sales drive, so its interesting to hear it again independently here. VOIP base stations and handsets are very expensive. Not sure why that is, but an ordinary DECT phone with 3 handsets would cost me around 70-80GBP but a VOIP base and TWO handsets would cost close to 200GBP. A third handset would cost another 70GBP. The cost difference is not trivial. Before I spend that kind of money - and this even before considering a replacement router should we decide to switch her to an FTTP provision - I want to be sure that I have considered all possible options so I appreciate your feedback.

I had read that existing DECT handsets may work with a VOIP a capable DECT base station such as the Gigaset N300A or other equivalent, but what concerns me is that compatibility across vendors appears to be very much a mixed bag. I guess it might be worth a try. The existing DECT handsets are BT4500, originally chosen because of their large buttons and amplification feature. I think if I was going to get a VOIP capable base, then would seem sensible to also get the handsets that were designed to work with it. The base station on its own + BT4500 handsets might be worth a try and add base vendor handsets later if there is a problem, but that is a more expensive way to buy the VOIP capable kit .

Yealink comes up a lot, and I have also become aware of Gigaset as VOIP equipment brands. Yealink appear to have the edge in reviews and comments. The VOIP provider recommends either one of these brands so it is likely that I would choose one of these if I went down that route.

I is interesting to hear different views and sometimes it might e worth "biting the bullet" for peace of mind so I am still considering all options including a purchase of a Yealink or Gigaset complete kit with base station and matching handsets.

Edited by TruthDigital (Thu 11-Sep-25 19:51:36)

In reply to a post by burble:

Talktalk supplied us with a Grand stream ATA, plugged our old Panny Dect phone into it and it seemed to work fine. After porting to A&A tried to reconfigure the ATA, but no luck, it wouldn't respond to ***, not sure if TT have it locked down, or there's some other reason like being older Dect phone, so if your house phone can reconfigure the ATA be prepared to use that phone to reconfigure for your parents line.

Thank you for the heads up. Not sure what you mean by the "house phone can reconfigure the ATA", but doesn't it have a web portal that you connect to for configuration?

I don't have an ATA at my parents house yet, but our handsets and theirs are BT, just different models. I have BT8500, she has BT4500. If I purchased a Grandstream, I would set it up and test it here first, then once I set up their VOIP contract, I would just re-configure it for their VOIP account and VOIP//landline number.

I also had an idea to set up and RPi at their end so that I could remote in and diagnose/manage devices on their network. I would need a static IP for that but I heard that PlusNet are no longer providing those? If that's the case, its another slight complication as I would then have to change BB provider as well.

We have a dg4134 router with a BT8500 plugged into it with a voip from Andrews and a
Arnold. Runs exactly like our landline used too on PTSN, Infact my 89 years old mother doesnt notice the difference.

In reply to a post by iannewson:

We have a dg4134 router with a BT8500 plugged into it with a voip from Andrews and a
Arnold. Runs exactly like our landline used too on PTSN, Infact my 89 years old mother doesnt notice the difference.

Interesting device. Never heard of Technicolor routers before but the blurb says it is vendor agnostic. Since it has VDSL connectivity, it would probably work on the existing FTTC provision. Not sure what happens if/when we move her to fibre?

They used to be called Thompson.

Not sure, Ive only used it on FTTP as it was supplied by Giganet when I joined.

Have a Grandstream HT802 and a Gigaset GO-Box 100 to play with too but havent had the time to (