Copper to Digital (Beginner)

Hi, my service (AT&T) is discontinuing their copper lines services and moving it to digital this year.
I assume that this means the lines will be VoIP and managed through the account online.

We have 6 lines with them, each dedicated to 3 faxes, the alarm system, mail machine, and an extra for a "just in case" scenario.

There is a lot of information online and it is kind of going over my head, and I'd like to get some confirmation or direction on what I will need for this move.

It sounds like I will need an FXS gateway to maintain the five devices or 6 separate ATAs. I see that some FXS gateways provide things like 8 ports with 2 SIP profiles.
Does a SIP profile only contain one line? Meaning that I will be better off with 6 individual ATAs so that I can have 6 different SIP profiles for each of the lines?
Or will the SIP profile allow me to allocate a dedicated line for each FXS port?

Thanks in advance for any insight and assistance.

Hi, do I guess from your post that you are in the US? If so, there may not be many people on this site that could help with specifics as this is primarily a UK based site and there are very few (as far as I know) US citizens who actively visit the site. Hopefully someone might be able to help but if you get radio silence then this is probably the reason.

In reply to a post by teebee4dee:

It sounds like I will need an FXS gateway to maintain the five devices or 6 separate ATAs. I see that some FXS gateways provide things like 8 ports with 2 SIP profiles.
Does a SIP profile only contain one line? Meaning that I will be better off with 6 individual ATAs so that I can have 6 different SIP profiles for each of the lines?
Or will the SIP profile allow me to allocate a dedicated line for each FXS port?

This really does depend on how AT&T provision their SIP trunks. It is entirely possible to have multiple simultaneous lines on a single trunk subscription. It is also possible for the provider to map individual DID (direct in dial) numbers to the same SIP trunk. Then on your side there are multiple permutations and combinations possible with either multiple discrete devices or indeed a single device with multiple analogue (FXS) ports.

As Ian says above it really isn’t the remit for this site (although you may get some informed responses by chance) as this is really a domestic UK broadband focussed forums.

Good luck.

reebee4dee

You need to talk to a comms specialist and update all your tech.

In the UK you would only need 1 Broadband connection!

The alarm line is the potential hardest hurdle as it may need changing out the system controller to work if the existing needs a copper connexion to work ( Electric/metallic path). Modern controllers can work over a data path so talk to your alarm supplier urgently. in the UK most use the Mobile network a minority use the Broadband.

In the UK Faxes are museum pieces and have been practically completely replaced by e-mail. Find out if you still need 3. Outgoing faxes can be sent from E-mail accounts in the UK (or from a printer/scanner ) Doubt if anyone below 35 in the UK has ever used a fax.

The mail machine I presume means a franking device for post, rather than a e-mail connection, this runs over the broadband in the UK.

Even if you want to keep all the faxes, you should end up with 1 broadband connexion a router/switch and 4 ATAs ( Without a computer you would only need 10Mb Down 2 Up. The alarm over the BB or by Mobile depending on the supplier

In the UK you end up with 1 BB connection a router a computer and a printer. Plus the alarm over Mobile or running into the Router.
.

Thank you all for your responses.

Sorry about the locale confusion. I tried to search for some forums on this topic, and this one seemed to be the most active and had some similar threads in the past and did not realize the general user base's locale.

It sounds like I am looking in the right direction, but it all comes down to my service provider and what options they provide with the SIP features and the alarm system's options.

As noted above, for the alarm system, most such system here have now been available either with direct LAN/Ethernet/WiFi cards and/or cellular/3G/4G cards for very many years. I would expect it to be very similar in the states.

Ditto the advice about the fax machines. In my experience they can be problematic things to get working reliably over an ATA connection. Direct network/cloud/email connected scanners are usually cheaper and loads faster now. Personally I really rate Fujitsu ScanSnap units or the integrated scanners on multifunction network printers which as noted either send direct to email recipient, local computers, cloud location (e.g. MS OneDrive, Dropbox etc) or a combo.

In reply to a post by teebee4dee:

Hi, my service (AT&T) is discontinuing their copper lines services and moving it to digital this year.
I assume that this means the lines will be VoIP and managed through the account online.

This is a more UK oriented forum but the only thing that springs to mind is ensure AT&T are providing proper SIP based VOIP accounts.

BT (the "main" communication provider in the UK) has the aim of getting rid of copper lines eventually and moving everyone to VOIP but their service (called BT Voice) is a proprietary system that requires specific hardware (locked to BT) and although I guess you can call it VOIP it will not work with standard SIP based hardware/software.

Make sure AT&T aren't doing something similar.

AT&T and BT both provide SIP VOIP services for Business customers. Don't get BTs residential BT Voice product muddled up. It is designed for mass market plug and play as a regulated product.

The business products are a different beast completely.

In reply to a post by teebee4dee:

Hi, my service (AT&T) is discontinuing their copper lines services and moving it to digital this year. [...]

This is the second post in the last few weeks from an American poster.

Evidently ThinkBroadband scores well in the search results, even for those on the other side of the Atlantic!

However I wonder if @MrSaffron might consider adding something to the masthead of the forums section of the site that clarifies it is aimed at a UK-based audience?

The main site does feature the text "The UK's largest independent broadband news and information site" in the masthead there.

No harm in it really in my opinion. Broad church and all that.