VOIP Advice

Hi all,

New to the forum and looking for some advice. During the thunder storms we had at the start of the week my DECT phone got wrecked (power surge took out the base unit). I'm currently on a fixed term landline contract with BT, but that ends in a couple of months.
So, I'm considering future proofing my system a bit and getting a Gigaset N300A paired with Gigaset C570A handsets. My plan is to use this setup with BT until the contract ends and then switching over to a VOIP provider. So I'm looking for some advice with two things:
1 - Will that work?
2 - Which VOIP providers go best with this setup? (I'm looking for a deal that gives free calls to landline and mobile and also provides an inbound number).

Not sure if it makes a difference, but I'm in the UK.

Hope someone can help with this.

Thanks

Alex

In reply to a post by AlexGoldie:

Hi all,

New to the forum and looking for some advice. During the thunder storms we had at the start of the week my DECT phone got wrecked (power surge took out the base unit). I'm currently on a fixed term landline contract with BT, but that ends in a couple of months.
So, I'm considering future proofing my system a bit and getting a Gigaset N300A paired with Gigaset C570A handsets. My plan is to use this setup with BT until the contract ends and then switching over to a VOIP provider. So I'm looking for some advice with two things:
1 - Will that work?
2 - Which VOIP providers go best with this setup? (I'm looking for a deal that gives free calls to landline and mobile and also provides an inbound number).

Not sure if it makes a difference, but I'm in the UK.

Hope someone can help with this.

Thanks

Alex

Just to make sure that you get relevant advice, do you have broadband as a separate contract to your telephone service? If your phone and broadband are bundled together and you wish to migrate your phone but not your broadband, you should bear in mind that migrating your phone to an independent VOIP provider may well cease both your landline and your broadband. We need to make sure you don't get caught out by that situation!

I have BT as a backup broadband provider which I will be getting rid of when the contract ends. My main provider is Starlink.

If you want to call mobiles you may find that using your own mobile phone is cheaper than making voip calls.
If you have an N300 you may find it cheaper to route calls to mobiles via companies such as Discountvoip and use companies such as Sipgate and Voipfone for calling landlines.

In reply to a post by AlexGoldie:

So, I'm considering future proofing my system a bit and getting a Gigaset N300A paired with Gigaset C570A handsets. My plan is to use this setup with BT until the contract ends and then switching over to a VOIP provider. So I'm looking for some advice with two things:
1 - Will that work?
2 - Which VOIP providers go best with this setup? (I'm looking for a deal that gives free calls to landline and mobile and also provides an inbound number).

Hello Alex,

I recently changed over to VOIP and I had similar decisions to make regarding which VOIP Provider to use and what ATA/Dect Phones to use.

I decided not to port my old number so that the change to VOIP would not affect my existing broadband provision in any way.

I now use Sipgate Basic with a free new local phone number, (of my choice), provided by Sipgate for free; together with a Gigaset N300A base station linked to Gigaset C375A phones and this setup works well

The Gigaset N300A did work with my Panason Dect Phones to simply make/receive calls but none of the Panasonic Phone Features worked. eg. Call memory/list of numbers but all features work with the Gigaset C375a phones.

Regarding the setup; I am not 100% sure that it is necessary but prior to setting up the N300a, I disabled both RTSP Passthrough and SIP Passthrough on my Asus Router and disabling these is probably worth doing whatever ATA Dect/Voip device you use.

Regards,
Fido

Thanks for the tip Michael. That's a good idea.

Hi Fido,

Good to hear from someone who's been through it. Glad the combination worked. From looking at their site I think SipGate is the one I'm going to go with. The starter package combine with the UK_Allnet_Flat sounds like a pretty good deal. Unlimited landline and mobile calls for just £9.95 per month seems pretty reasonable.

Thanks for all the good suggestions guys.

In reply to a post by AlexGoldie:

Hi Fido,

From looking at their site I think SipGate is the one I'm going to go with. The starter package combine with the UK_Allnet_Flat sounds like a pretty good deal. Unlimited landline and mobile calls for just £9.95 per month seems pretty reasonable.

Sipgate Starter is basically a Pay As You Go Service with no line rental and a very reasonable call cost per minute as follows;

https://www.sipgate.co.uk/all-call-rates#landline

Personally, (since I do not make a lot of calls), I do not pay for a monthly calls package and last month it only cost me 50p for landline calls.

I use my mobile for mobile calls.

Regards,
Fido

In reply to a post by Fido:

In reply to a post by AlexGoldie:

Hi Fido,

From looking at their site I think SipGate is the one I'm going to go with. The starter package combine with the UK_Allnet_Flat sounds like a pretty good deal. Unlimited landline and mobile calls for just £9.95 per month seems pretty reasonable.

Sipgate Starter is basically a Pay As You Go Service with no line rental and a very reasonable call cost per minute as follows;

https://www.sipgate.co.uk/all-call-rates#landline

Personally, (since I do not make a lot of calls), I do not pay for a monthly calls package and last month it only cost me 50p for landline calls.

I use my mobile for mobile calls.

Regards,
Fido

I think you ill find that the call rates for Voipfone are slightly cheaper particularly to UK mobile numbers.

Of particular note is that calls to numbers on the same platform are free with both companies.

Yes, you can run your existing landline into the N300A and have up to 5 VoIP services at te same time. Then when you mgrate your copper landline to another VoIP it becomes the sixth connection.