Have to have Fritz!Box for VOIP?

I signed up with Zen Internet and transferred my broadband and landline VOIP service over from BT Broadband after their sales rep said my hardware setup would be fine.

It nows turns out that the Yealink VOIP phone provided originally by BT Broadband won't actually work with Zen's VOIP, and I need to buy & set up a Fritz!Fon with the Fritz!Box router provided by Zen.

They have offered me £50 credit to purchase a Fritz!Fon but the only one I can find is a Fritz!Fon M2 on Amazon and has several bad reviews warning buyers to beware.

Is there any alternative that Zen should be telling me about? It all seems a bit "by the book", but I don't know much about VOIP handsets.

You know the Fritz box has VoIP built in and you can plug any ordinary analogue phone in to it (including a base station for cordless phones) and also can be configured as a DECT base station?

As the other post mentions, you can plug a phone into the fritzbox and pair any standard DECT cordless phones to it directly, you don't have to buy the fritzfon.
I use a "Gigaset S30852-H2765-L101 Additional Handset" aka "C430HX" (catchy name) with mine and it seems to work well, the few times I've actually used it.

Edited by FakeJake (Fri 20-May-22 23:16:50)

OK, thanks for the explanation. I can't say I know what a DECT phone does. The Yeolink W65H provided by BT Broadband says that it's a DECT phone, so I guess it should work with the Fritzbox.

But why do I need a Fritzbox router? The Yeolink worked with the VOIP service from BT, but it doesn't with Zen. I'd like to understand this so I can get an idea what the Fritzbox router does that my Draytek Vigor modem doesn't do.

DECT, Digital enhanced cordless telecommunications (originally Digital European cordless telecommunications), is a set of standards primarily for cordeless telephones.

The wireless communications from the DECT base to handset uses completely different frequencies and protocols to WiFi. Depending on the particular base unit design the voice connection to the base can either be conventional analog which would typically be plugged into the master socket on the phone line coming into a house, or voice over IP which would be carried over an ethernet connection plugged into your router.

I'm guessing the Yealink was provided by BT Business as the BT Retail VoIP setup is different. The BT provided VoIP products are fully managed so the end user cannot make changes or easily repurpose them.

The Zen supplied Fritz Box combines the functionalities of a router, DECT base station and ATA (analogue telephone adapter). I know they provision services remotely, but I don't know if they actively prevent the use of third-party devices, or just strongly discourage it to make support easier.

You may be able to register the Yealink handset to the Fritz Box inbuilt base, otherwise as others have suggested you can certainly either register a number of Gigaset DECT handsets to a Fritz Box, or plug a corded phone / analog DECT base into the phone socket on the Fritz Box.

If the Yealink can be unlocked AND you can get the VoIP setup information from Zen then you could configure the Yealink to use their service.

I suspect the real question may be not why won't the BT supplied Yeolink work on Zen, but rather what have BT done to the Yeolink that prevents it being used with VoIP from any other provider and can it be unlocked.

All Yeolink dect devices contact a central Yeolink database to check if their is any pre-configured data for them and if so the SIP settings are configured accordingly and settings are disabled. If you default the device it will still recontact the database and reconfigure the device so there is no point in doing that.

For BT supplied Yeolink devices this database is configured whereas if you buy a brand new one (not from ebay) it isn't. You cannot get this database changed so the device is locked to the BT settings. Never sell a BT supplied device on ebay if the BT service is still valid as the new owner will be able to use your BT service.

Edited by deleted (Sat 21-May-22 09:09:32)

I am a big AVM Fritz!box fan. Their products are long lasting and come with a 5 year warranty. Both the 7530; 7590 and the new 4060AX have a built in DECT station. I have three Fritz!Fons (now 10 years old) connected to my box with a VOIP service from AAISP. Companies such as Gigabit offer their own DECT to IP boxes: it just means one more box plus a LAN connection to the network. The 7530 gets around this problem whilst, at the same time, ensuring no DECT to router interference.

AVM issues frequent firmware updates to all its devices and the GUI is probably one of the best on the market when it comes to device set up and information.

I have purchased the 4060AX recently and, in terms of wifi performance, it is streets ahead of my old 7590 (which was already very good). Coupled with a Repeater 3000, I now get almost full 300/50 speeds in all parts of my home.

Thanks again for the input. That sounds pretty conclusive then, regarding the Yealink DECT phone.

Regarding the number of boxes or better said, the number of devices needing to be plugged into the mains, I really want to keep that to the minimum. The advantage of the Yealink phone is that it runs off PoE via the ethernet cable. If I replace the Yealink with a Fritz!fon then it looks like I'll have another plug for the base station to plug in to the mains. The AVM Fritz website didn't boast that their Fritz!fons have PoE capability which it probably would boast if it had it.

There seem to be very few Fritz!fons for sale. The one on Amazon had gathered a heap of bad reviews, and then I found another on Amazon Marketplace, but they all seem to be £50+. Not sure which Gigaset DECT phone would work.

At the moment, I'm just going to set it up with my old cabled landline phone which Zen says should work. Assuming that will work in the short term, I'd quite like a cableless handset so the question is whether it's worth spending more money getting a cableless DECT phone, or a cheapio cableless analog phone.

My partner notes that BT should be rebuked for locking their hardware and causing large amounts of unnecessary waste, particularly dumb for this day and age.

In reply to a post by TreeHugger:

Regarding the number of boxes or better said, the number of devices needing to be plugged into the mains, I really want to keep that to the minimum. The advantage of the Yealink phone is that it runs off PoE via the ethernet cable. If I replace the Yealink with a Fritz!fon then it looks like I'll have another plug for the base station to plug in to the mains. The AVM Fritz website didn't boast that their Fritz!fons have PoE capability which it probably would boast if it had it.

The Yealink base can be PoE powered, the Fritz!Box DECT base is integral so no additional boxes, power supplies or cables. Any DECT phone will have a charging stand which requires power.

Not sure which Gigaset DECT phone would work.

See https://www.gigaset.com/en_en/cms/service/compatibil... it doesn't have the 7530 specifically, however I would expect handsets which work with other Fritz!Box models listed which have the same or older firmware version than the 7530 to work.

At the moment, I'm just going to set it up with my old cabled landline phone which Zen says should work. Assuming that will work in the short term, I'd quite like a cableless handset so the question is whether it's worth spending more money getting a cableless DECT phone, or a cheapio cableless analog phone.

Any cableless analog phone will be DECT for the cableless part, the analogue part will only be the phone cable connecting into the base.

My partner notes that BT should be rebuked for locking their hardware and causing large amounts of unnecessary waste, particularly dumb for this day and age.

If it has been supplied as part of a contract they should really either have a recycling scheme, or a mechanism for unlocking them outside of contract so they can be reused.