Decided to try Voice over IP (VOIP) and have selected Vonage as my carrier.
So far, I must say that I’m pretty impressed. Everything I’ve wanted to configure so far is configurable and the line quality is much better than I expected.
I was on the phone yesterday while downloading some really large books from Audible.com for my iPod and could see the book downloads slow down but there was no perceptible degradation in the voice conversation.
The router they sent me was a Linksys RT31P2. I tried and tried to set it up so that it was outside of my current network (between my DSL modem and my Wireless router) as described in Vonage’s site. But eventually I had to concede that I really was making this more complicated than I needed to.
I checked out Broadband reports to see if they could shed some light on the configuration changes needed to make my current router not the gateway to the internet. But eventually needed to contact Vonage Tech support to get their advice on it. After all, they must face this issue dozens of times per day. Even though their website is loaded with useful information, it didn’t cover this little issue.
The Vonage guy was obviously in India – definitely the trend for CSRs these days but I was still surprised at how thick his accent was. It took a couple of tries to understand what he was saying. He assured me that I could put my new router inside my network and not have any ill effects due to bandwidth contention. He said if there were any bandwidth issues I could call back and we’d work them out.
It was definitely an easier solution than I was trying to implement and so far so good.
Ok, how does this work with your existing phones? Is there an interface to the existing phone wireing in your house?
King
Check out the link above to the RT31P2. It’s actually a broadband router with two phone jacks in the back. I just plugged that router into my existing wireless linksys router, plugged my phone in the back and Voilá, service.
To interface with the existing home wiring, I’m going to ditch my DSL connection and replace it with Cable. Then I’ll disconnect the Bellsouth wiring at the NIC (the box at the outer wall of my house) and I’ll be self contained. I just need to plug the cable from the router into a jack at that point to bring all the phones in my house online.
If Bellsouth smartens up (I’m going to give them this chance since their internet service has been so good to me) I’ll keep their internet service and get rid of their phone service. This is something that is coming, but I may be too early. I’ll disconnect all the jacks besides the one I use for DSL. I had things set up so I have a direct line going to my computer station and all the remaining house telephone wiring is filtered at the NIC and independent of that DSL line. So I can work it either way.
For now, while I’m experimenting with it, I’ve forwarded my Bellsouth phone number to my temporary Vonage number and am just using the one phone in my house that’s plugged into my router.