Voice Bridge - answering landline calls on my mobile phone?

ermine

Seems a curious and specific legacy requirement. But you could transfer you LL number to Sipgate and use a sipgate app on your mobile

https://teamhelp.sipgate.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/208199105-Bria-iOS-and-Android-

to make outgoing calls from the app, and use your mobile for it. And answer your LL calls on your mobile, albeint not as a mobile phone call (unless you forward sipgate incoming to your mobile number)

I have a gigaset N300 voice bridge to get sipgate on my legacy DECT phones. You can also use something like a Polycom conferencing bridge to make outgoing calls on a mobile as a better speakerphone than the mobile handset, that does it by plugging into the wired headset connector and pretending to be a wired headset. But the sound quality of mobile phone calls sucks inherently and by design, so you are putting lipstick on a pig, a bluetooth device is easier.

The app on wifi sounds a better than GSM mobile calls with their 9600 baud data rate because sipgate is usually clearer. Unless you are talking to someone on a mobile, in which case it's still crap.

Victor_Delta

Thanks for your helpful suggestions ermine.

It may be a curious legacy requirement but it's what I want to do! My landline number is still much used by friends and relations, plus local businesses, and the line itself delivers our broadband so I don't want to change the current arrangements which work well.

Reading about the Invoxia voice box I thought it would be easy to link landline and mobile phones, to enable flexible answering, but it now appears to be unavailable (even on eBay!). Do any of the gigaset voice bridges provide similar functionality by any chance...?

RogerBareford

Victor_Delta said:

Thanks for your helpful suggestions ermine.

It may be a curious legacy requirement but it's what I want to do! My landline number is still much used by friends and relations, plus local businesses, and the line itself delivers our broadband so I don't want to change the current arrangements which work well.

Reading about the Invoxia voice box I thought it would be easy to link landline and mobile phones, to enable flexible answering, but it now appears to be unavailable (even on eBay!). Do any of the gigaset voice bridges provide similar functionality by any chance...?

If you want to do it "just because" then ofcourse that's a perfectly acceptable reason as long as you know whatever you buy will probably be legacy equipment with limited support. If your doing this a project kind of thing where your happy to tinker with it from a technical perspective then sounds great but otherwise i wouldn't be doing.

I just want to clarify that if that you transfer the number to a VOIP service you will still be able to receive the calls that anyone makes to your landline number and you can still make calls using that number all from your mobile or PC or other device of your choosing wherever you are.

So you can wait until you are near the end of your landline contract, transfer the landline number to a VOIP service and then take out a new contract for your broadband and then you won't have to buy any equipment to transfer calls which as you have found out is not easy to get hold of and won't be supported for long term.

Personally if your not using the line for a business i would just setup call forwarding and anytime you get a call tell them person your mobile number and that you will be getting rid of your landline. Do this for a year and just get rid of it just like if you move house you setup mail redirection for a year and tell everyone your new address.

Victor_Delta

Roger, Many thanks for that. I obviously need to give it some further thought!

ermine

I think your issue is

> easy to link landline and mobile phones

where you want to answer (and make outgoing calls) on your mobile, showing your landline #. The gigaset voice bridge lets you use sipgate on a normal DECT phone, and it so happens you can also pick up a sipgate call on your mobile at home using the app and wifi. Probably also using the app and mobile data, though I haven't tested that. I got it to merge sipgate and the POTS landline, being able to choose routing when making a call, and to pick up voip or LL on the same handset. It does that very well. No mobile integration, unless you add a VOIP softphone as an app on your mobile.

You are presumably aware that the PSTN is being switched off in 2025, so you will be going down the VOIP track anyway soon enough?

https://www.bt.com/help/landline/what-is-digital-voice-and-how-can-i-get-it-

and for business

https://business.bt.com/insights/digital-transformation/uk-pstn-switch-off/

Sipgate will also allow you to show your mobile (or any other number you control) in the caller ID of an outgoing sipgate call. Sipgate basic is a no-frills service, Sipgate teams

https://www.sipgateteam.co.uk/

is more fancy, but sipgate basic does let you use softphones (on your mobile) and it lets you forward calls.

https://basichelp.sipgate.co.uk/hc/en-gb/articles/204155792--Forwarding-calls-to-other-phone-numbers

It can also let you forward calls after a delay, to your mobile, so inside the delay you could pick up using a Dect phone, else use your mobile.

Sipgate aren't the only provider, if you Google "uk voip providers" there are others. Much of the functionality is in the cloud service, so what you get depends on the prvider, and the tier you pay for.

Victor_Delta

Ermine - very helpful. Thank you.