Local IP phone vendor?

[SoonerDave]

Anyone know of local companies selling simple IP telephone handsets? I know I can pick them up over eBay etc, but was hoping maybe someone was offering them locally....not yet hit mainstream enough to go to retailers like BestBuy etc..

[bluedogok]

I use a regular Panasonic DECT cordless system with the base connected to a NetTalk Duo box connected to my router. It works fine and no long distance charges. The box was around $60.00 last year at Walmart, my renewal is up this month and it is $29.95, that is mainly taxes/fees.

[stick47]

If VOIP is what you're wanting, I like our Ooma box ($200) and Panasonic dect system (5 phones for $120) We've had Ooma for about 2 years and the monthly charge is just the tax (> $4) Long distance is free and if you need international it's about 5 or 6 cents a minute. They start you off with the premium service at no extra cost but if you forget to cancel & switch to Ooma standard you'll be charged $10/mo. We had no problem cancelling out & going to standard with them. Also we paid $40 to have our old ATT number ported over to the Ooma line. Service has been excellent. You can even go online and check the details for your ingoing and outgoing calls.
The last time Cox internet raised their rates I switched our service with them to the 3mps speed to lower our bill and even that low speed is fast enough for the VOIP service with Ooma. Great company IMO!

[SoonerDave]

If VOIP is what you're wanting, I like our Ooma box ($200) and Panasonic dect system (5 phones for $120) We've had Ooma for about 2 years and the monthly charge is just the tax (> $4) Long distance is free and if you need international it's about 5 or 6 cents a minute. They start you off with the premium service at no extra cost but if you forget to cancel & switch to Ooma standard you'll be charged $10/mo. We had no problem cancelling out & going to standard with them. Also we paid $40 to have our old ATT number ported over to the Ooma line. Service has been excellent. You can even go online and check the details for your ingoing and outgoing calls.
The last time Cox internet raised their rates I switched our service with them to the 3mps speed to lower our bill and even that low speed is fast enough for the VOIP service with Ooma. Great company IMO!

Ooma surely sounds like a good option. At least for the moment, however, I'm considering a slightly different approach. What I'm really trying to do is set up an in-house phone server (open-source Asterisk server) and just run VOIP in-house. I was just looking for an inexpensive IP phone handset to do some more testing. I've got the server up and running through a softphone client on my laptop and routing a Google Voice number through it. Still doing lots of learning and reading about dialplans and contexts and such

Ideally, my "end-game" were I to see this project to its conclusion would be to port my home number first to a cell provider, then to Google Voice, thus enabling me to drop my current land-line phone provider entirely. I've built the server with old components that still work famously, and in my testing so far the call quality has been excellent. I've got voicemail going, local dialing set up, etc. The next step as I saw it was to add a real, physical IP handset...

As I said, it looks like I could pick up a real basic "gently used" handset off eBay for about $35, so that's not a problem, just wondering if anyone was selling them locally.

[stick47]

Well I gotta ask... Is there some benefit to the IP phone that hasn't been mentioned yet? What features would it have that say a Vonage or an Ooma would not provide? I just don't get it.

[SoonerDave]

Well I gotta ask... Is there some benefit to the IP phone that hasn't been mentioned yet? What features would it have that say a Vonage or an Ooma would not provide? I just don't get it.

Vonage and Ooma are both IP providers, but Vonage locks their devices to their service and Ooma ties me to their hardware for an up-front cost of $150-$200, plus the $3/4 passthrough cost. Unlikely as it may seem, if Ooma goes out of business, that box instantly becomes useless. Porting my landline to a cell, then GoogleVoice, costs me nothing (saving for the possibility of a short-term setup of a temp cell line for a "placeholder" for my land number). Beyond that, I set up a home Asterisk server that uses Google Voice as a trunk for zero cost per month. My only "cost" is that of a five-year-old computer that wasn't being used. Now, I buy regular, off-the-shelf IP phones to just plug into my network and provision through the web-based PBX administration tool.

As I said, I'm still in the planning/exploration stages. May discover I don't want to do anything. Right now, an option that completely divorces me from a ~$400/yr landline provider expense is attractive. Ooma may be a fallback if I opt not to pursue my own Asterisk server further. We'll see.

[bluedogok]

As I said, I'm still in the planning/exploration stages. May discover I don't want to do anything. Right now, an option that completely divorces me from a ~$400/yr landline provider expense is attractive. Ooma may be a fallback if I opt not to pursue my own Asterisk server further. We'll see.

That was why I went with the NetTalk box, a much lower up front cost than the Ooma and no monthly charge like Vonage, just $29.95 a year which was included the first year of service in my initial purchase of around $60.00. I got it up here and setup service for the Denver area, when we left Austin we cancelled AT&T and did not sign up for CenturyLink up here, I have Comcast for internet only.

Walmart - NetTalk Duo - $49.99

[SoonerDave]

Well, having let this thread get a little rusty,I thought I'd update where I was.

The cost of even third-hand IP phones off eBay all-but derailed this particular project, and then an alternative came up.

OBI sells an Ethernet-Telephony junction "box" that you hook up to your broadband Internet connection and to your regular analog phone(s). You configure the OBI box with whatever voice provider you want (which would be, in my case, Google Voice), plug it into the input of your phone jack setup, and you're good to go. This lets you use potentially all of your existing POTS phone lines, particularly if you have newer equipment with low ringer equivalence.

The cost of the OBI box is about $40, and is available readily through Amazon. This allows me not to have to maintain an entirely separate computer to host Asterisk, nor do I have to buy IP handsets.

So, the plan at the moment is to get a cheap pay-as-you-go SIM to port my home number to a cell host, then move the number from the cell host to Google Voice. A SIM with minimal minutes should run no more than $5-10 for just enough minutes to do the testing, and the Google Voice port costs $20. So, for an investment of (at worst) $70, I'm hoping to be able to save $43/month, less $1/mo for some variety of e911 service.

If it all works, it will pay for itself in two billing cycles. At $42/mo ($35 + 8 taxes/fees, less $1 for e911 service on the new config), I'm looking at saving $504/year. That's good stuff.

Will let you know how it works out.

[stick47]

Ok Thanks for the explanation. I say if you can avoid even the $4/mo tax and the initial cost of the Ooma box then you're ahead right at the start. My old ATT bill with long distance which I rarely used was running $40/mo so after 6 months my Ooma was saving me money.

[SoonerDave]

Ok Thanks for the explanation. I say if you can avoid even the $4/mo tax and the initial cost of the Ooma box then you're ahead right at the start. My old ATT bill with long distance which I rarely used was running $40/mo so after 6 months my Ooma was saving me money.

Absolutely! That's a great deal.

But being the card-carrying geek that I am, the notion of setting up my own Asterisk server and at least trying to configure/manage an in-house VOIP setup was just too good to pass up

Whether going entirely in-house, or moving to Ooma, or some other notion, I think its just a matter of time before I shut down the POTS line provided I can port the number I've had for 20+ years to some other provider mechanism. After that length of time, that number just has too many tentacles to just shut it down, whether it ends up with Google or Ooma or XYZ. We'll see

[Martin]

ugh... i need to do this. when i moved last may, cox replaced my cable modem with a unit that plugs into my phone line for voip. it sounds as if i could do practically the same thing with this instead of paying cox around $40 a month. -M

[SoonerDave]

ugh... i need to do this. when i moved last may, cox replaced my cable modem with a unit that plugs into my phone line for voip. it sounds as if i could do practically the same thing with this instead of paying cox around $40 a month. -M

Precisely my plan. I'm going to order the OBI100 box today and test it against my existing Google Voice number to ensure I can plug it up to ring/work with all the POTS phones in the house. Every expectation from what I've read is that it will work just fine. Even if it doesn't, it's only a $40 investment. Worth the risk, I figure.

[bluedogok]

My netTalk renewal was only $29.95/year, it just has to have power and a network connection.

[SoonerDave]

Update

Thought I'd give everyone the update on this project.

I received my Obi100 yesterday, and even though I had seen pictures of the thing, I was amazed at how small the thing was in my hand when I unboxed it. Literally about the size of a deck of playing cards. The package comes with a nice Ethernet cable, a 12V power supply, and some quick setup instructions.

I plugged the unit into my router, and direct-connected the Obi to a regular telephone, and dialed a test call per the setup instructions, which worked perfectly the first time. I had the unit announce its assigned IP address so I could then use a browser to access its web-based configuration tool. I also took the time to put that IP address on my "always allowed" list on the outbound side of my firewalled network (which saves me having to punch individual holes for all the required ports).

Turns out you can configure it one of two ways - either directly through its internal webserver, or through a simplified interface system at OBiTALK. You go through a simple detect and configure step to register it with Obi; the configuration page tells you to dial a particular number on the attached handset, it sends that number out, and the site then confirms it was able to talk to your device and confirms the setup.

Then its just a matter of setting up a voice service - the OBI100 supports two. For the purposes of testing, I set up my existing Google Voice number/account as my service provider, waited for a couple of minutes, and a refreshed configuration page told me my device was connected to my Google Voice account. And that was it. All in all, for the basic single-handset setup, it might have taken me 15 minutes. Maybe.

I started making some test calls, and sound quality was perfect.

The next step was to see if I could make the Obi support all my existing in-house phones merely by plugging it into a wall jack rather than a phone, so I first went outside to my Network Interface Device box, opened the customer side, and disconnected the current landline provider. That's an important step because there is a chance of up to 90V floating around in that box for ringer power, and that going to your Obi would probably fry it . With that disconnected, I simply disconnected my handset and plugged the cord into that phone's former wall jack, and voila - I had dial tone all over the house.

I then tested all of my phones - two hardwired phones, and one cordless phone system - and all worked perfectly. Outbound and inbound calls were at least as clear as when served by my conventional landline provider. Wireless phones worked with no issues at all. The only test that was problematic was inbound faxing - and I later found that was due to my fax machine not picking up early enough before the calling service gave up. Once I fixed that problem, the test fax came in with no problem.

By the time I was done playing and configuring, it was getting late, and I was not yet ready to commit the phones overnight as I had not yet configured a 911 service provider. The Obi provides a link to an E911 service, and other VOIP services such as CallCentric also offer (very) low-cost 911 service (something between $1-$1.50/month). For now, the tests I had done were satisfactory, so I disconnected the Obi, went back out to my NID and reconnected my landline provider.

About the only things I was not able to test in detail were call waiting and call forwarding, and configuring the box for either my own answering machine or using Google voicemail. I suspect I've not even touched the surface of the options I will have available. Even with my $35+tax/mo service, I don't get call forwarding.

About the only issues I note right now, and they're pretty trivial, is how long before a steady outbound dialtone is offered. When you pick up a device, you get a "stutter" tone for a bit longer than I would expect, then steady tone for dialing. I'm assuming that's network latency (EDIT: Wrong. The stutter tone indicates I have a voicemail waiting from my VOIP provider, which I did!, so this issue is already gone).. Also, the OBI comes with a default administrative account and password which should immediately be changed to something more secure. But, as I said, those are easily remedied issues.

So far, I don't see a downside to this setup. Everything right now indicates to me I have the possibility of a superior phone feature set using my existing home phones and, at least in theory, using my existing home phone number, saving about $40/mo in the process.

The next step will be porting my number, which should be an adventure it itself...(hopefully not).

[SoonerDave]

I realize no one is necessarily following this, but for the sake of completeness I'm going to finish off the experience...

Reader's Digest version: Everything WORKS, and I now have FREE IP-based phone service through Google Voice. (setting aside an $0.80/mo fee for 911 service).

When I last posted, I was at the "port the number" step, and as my destination was Google Voice, I had to take the intermediate steps of porting my phone to a cell provider. This is because Google Voice will not port landline numbers directly. So I bought a $0.99 pay-as-you-go SIM from T-Mobile that came with free activation and 10 minutes of free talk time, more than enough to cover any test calls through the porting process. So I activated the card, plopped it into an older but working cell phone, and I was live with a temporary cell number in about ten minutes. That brought us to the next step...

I initiated the number port of my landline to my temporary phone via T-Mobile on a Friday, which amounts to providing your account number and address to the wireless carrier. It should have been a 24-hour process; but, on Monday, I called T-Mobile to find out that Cox had rejected the port because of a mismatched zip code on the billing address. Alas. Lesson: Ensure the wireless carrier has ALL the correct address information up-front! After re-checking the information, they resubmitted the port request, and 24 hours later, I got a text message on the phone telling me my cell now had my former home phone number. That brought us to the last step...

Porting the number from TMobile to Google Voice was ridiculously easy. I logged into the GMail account I created specifically for voice/phone account management, went into the voice configuration, and requested a port-in of my home number. After paying $20 through Google Checkout, my port was started, and 24 hours to the minute later, it was completed. A couple of quick test calls inbound and out showed that my home phone number was fully operational through the Internet using Google Voice! SUCCESS!

Good luck to anyone else who gives it a shot. I'm glad I did. My total investment was $61.08; $40 for the OBI100 ATA device, $20 for the Google Voice port, and $1.08 for the TMobile pay-as-you-go SIM card. It should pay for itself in two months!!!

-David

[SoonerDave]

Welp, just as a "what's up now" with this Google Voice setup...its a "good news/bad news" situation...

ON the "good news" side, I've had my Google Voice/OBI setup working now for just shy of a year with only one hiccup - my original Obi100 telephony device died about two months after it was initially set up - and for no apparent reason (best theory was an elec surge through the inbound phone side), but within warranty, Obi sent me a replacement that I had up and running in under an hour. I'll be able to go to apparently about April with my setup..which means I've pocketed about $350 or so. More than paid for itself....however...

On the "bad news" side, it appears the protocol leveraged by the Obi device to get calls routed through Google Chat and into their device is going to be discontinued by Google as of May 14, 2014.

That sucks.

In the intervening year, I've learned to absolutely love the inbound call tools Google provides in Google Voice. Voicemail transcription, inbound call blocking, geez, so many options I'm sure I haven't begun to really explore them all. So I hate to lose that....but it also sounds like there is at least the notion that Google may simply retire Voice altogether, or somehow merge/integrate it into Google Hangouts. That remains to be seen.

So what are my options? Hate to lose my Obi device, hate to lose GV phone management. Porting my home number to an entirely different provider means I lose the GV tools. In the near-term, it looks like one option is to sign up with a "conventional" VOIP provider, get a number assigned, then configure GV to forward my calls to that number. On the flip side, I'd then configure the new provider to supply my "real" outbound phone number with my outbound calls. And it looks more and more like Obi is setting up service to do precisely that - at obivoice.com. Right now, it looks like they're going to set up a service in this vein for $3.33/month.

Will definitely be checking into this in the coming months.