Ditching the Landline as a Voip Beginner

mikemmb

Help needed to understand the basics of VOIP etc, all the guides I have tried to follow start off assuming a level of knowledge above my head!

Basically I was using an existing "Gigaset Box 200A" cordless phone base station plugged into my incoming landline connection which had 2 remote handsets giving a simple landline cordless phone setup. But in addition I had an "Invoxia" box plugged into the gigaset box and also to my (landline) router which gave the ability for calls to my landline number to also ring my mobile (via a "Voicebridge" app) at the same time. So whichever device (ie: either of the two home phone cordless handsets or my mobile if I was out and about) picked up first got the call. In other words my "mobile" effectively became another "cordless" home phone with an infinite range.

I now have a TPLink 4G router  and my current plan is to ditch the landline phone and landline broadband connection completely. Then simply use our existing mobile phones to make & receive all calls.

However my thoughts turned to somehow utilising the "TPLink 4G router SIM" (which has unlimited data, minutes and texts plus of course a built in mobile number) to effectively create a "home phone" setup complete with the redundant Gigaset Cordless Handsets. ....then of course my thoughts turned to having my mobile ring as well using the Invoxia box (see above)?

I know "nothing" about voip systems (if that is what I am talking about!), but is this a go'er in some way, shape or form? Has anyone got a similar'ish system?

Perhaps the fundemental questions are:

(1) Can the SIM in the Router be used in any way to become a new "Home Phone" number?

(2) Can this be linked into the Gigaset cordless phone kit to give me two cordless handsets?

(3) Can this be somehow linked to my mobile (either using the Invoxia/Gigaset kit or some other way)?

(4) Is there an easier way to achieve the same end result, time isn't an issue as during the current Lockup Lockdown, critical Boredom and Cabin Fever are creeping in!

Any help you can give would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you and a happy new year.

Mike

Mickey666

Perhaps there's a 5th fundamental question - do you need a landline telephone at all?
I have a landline purely for the broadband internet but I don't have a phone plugged into it and haven't used it for 5-6 years. 
If you have a good mobile signal at home, what is the point of a landline phone and additional number?

mikemmb

Thanks for your input Mickey and I'm with you up to a point.
We actually don't want a conventional hard wired home landline which is why I am looking to get a 4G Router SIM based home phone system up and running.
I do still see advantages in having a "Home" point of contact that either member of our household can answer, but as time goes by even a dinosaur like me can see the need for that diminishing.
Years ago we used to have a TalkTalk system called Talk2Go which was fantastic when it worked, but even I have to admit it was flaky at best! ....which was probably more to do with the network stability than the concept. But it was great to receive and make calls on your "home landline" from anywhere in the world!

biffer_2

Some comments:

• I remember hearing from someone that most (99.9%) sim modems don't support voice calls.  I think you won't be able to use the number in the SIM for incoming calls unless the TPLink device has some special capabilities, but I may be mistaken.
• I don't believe you can use your existing handsets without a POTs analogue interface telephony card.  These used to be dirt cheap 10+ years ago but they seem to have become more pricey last time I looked.  That's probably because nobody uses them.
• You need a SIP phone to do VOIP, unless you want to pay for the above type of hardware to adapt the signal from ana to digi and it's probably just a waste of money when most people are walking around with powerful 8-core computers in their pockets that will do this just as well in software.  You only need wifi (don't need a SIM) in a mobile for it to act as a SIP phone.
  
• Assuming that you can't use your SIM for the incoming number you will need to get yourself another one.  The way many people do this for free is to get themselves an 0845/087X number.  The number makes enough money to pay for itself but it could annoy people trying to contact you if they can't use their mobile minutes on it.
  
• If you haven't a clue about voip, you might want to look at a system like 3CX which is hosted.  They'll have their own apps for SIP phones (what you run on your mobiles/wifi devices to make calls), so you don't need to scratch about trying out different free ones and trying to configure them so they work.  Other PBXs like Asterisk require a little reading and need you to set them up.  I did find Asterisk to be superbly documented, if you can bother to read everything, it takes you through everything that you need to do, but I had to set aside some hours to understand it.  http://www.asteriskdocs.org/en/3rd_Edition/asterisk-book-html-chunk/index.html

Hope this helps, and sorry in advance if I got anything wrong, I'm not really an expert.

Chino

biffer_2 said:

• I remember hearing from someone that most (99.9%) sim modems don't support voice calls.

Did that same someone identify any of the 0.1% models of sim modems that apparently do support voice calls?

biffer_2

Chino said:

Did that same someone identify any of the 0.1% models of sim modems that apparently do support voice calls?

No.  I think if they existed they went the way of USB ADSL modems.  Technically still useful (I would buy one), but the industry has just gone a different way.  If a SIM modem did take a voice call what would it do with it?  Would you tell it to talk to a PBX?  If so you might just as well use pure VOIP.  If you want it connected to a single handset, why not just make that handset a mobile phone?  Annoying for the edge case the OP is describing, and I do get why he wants to do that, but most people don't think like this.  If they want multiple phones in a house, each person gets a mobile, and then they have the benefit of taking it wherever they like.  For the cost of a cheap Lebara contract it's not worth the hassle.  PBXes are pretty cool though.  You can do stuff like having your doorbell ring your mobile to give you a voice message, not too hard once you have the base system in place.  Or have the caller solve some numeric problem (like a captcha) before speaking to anyone to prove they're not an automated spammer.  This is done for the whole house and once done never needs changing instead of using some dodgy Android app equivalent that possibly won't work with the latest handsets (or even old ones).

mikemmb

Thanks biffer for your comments, plenty of "light' reading and most of all a family decision on the way forward.
Plus of course some gazing into a crystal ball to predict the future!
I cannot believe we are still faffing about with physical Sim's, in my mind they belong to the same era as "vinyl records".
But of course even the blindingly obvious needs to be invented, see Larry Tezler who sadly passed away recently? 

Browntoa

The physical landline (copper wires , or PSTN as it is known) is scheduled for phase out by 2025 . Open reach will no longer offer phone lines , purely an ethernet offering , and the customer will be expected to arrange a VoIP product via their supplier ( or themselves )  or use a mobile

brewerdave

Browntoa said:

The physical landline (copper wires , or PSTN as it is known) is scheduled for phase out by 2025 . Open reach will no longer offer phone lines , purely an ethernet offering , and the customer will be expected to arrange a VoIP product via their supplier ( or themselves )  or use a mobile

As with most plans ,I suspect that there will be a (high?) degree of slippage in some parts of the country !!

J_B

brewerdave said:

Browntoa said:

The physical landline (copper wires , or PSTN as it is known) is scheduled for phase out by 2025 . Open reach will no longer offer phone lines , purely an ethernet offering , and the customer will be expected to arrange a VoIP product via their supplier ( or themselves )  or use a mobile

As with most plans ,I suspect that there will be a (high?) degree of slippage in some parts of the country !!

indeed - copper wire is the only way for us 'country bumpkins'!

littleboo

The copper will still be there, its the ways its used that's changing