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RTuesday
join:2006-01-30

RTuesday

Member

[Equipment] Wifi IP phone recommendations

I'm looking into getting an IP phone to use as a "house phone" - with the same sort of use a POTS phone used to get (in other words, so anybody in the house can be called, rather than somebody's cellphone). It needs to be portable (cordless), not wired to a router.

What models do you recommend for a simple wifi IP phone (preferably with a docking charger base) that will work with wifi 802.11g WPA2, and generic SIP VoIP providers like Localphone?

I see on Amazon (US) there are some cheap (and nasty, according to the reviews) phones like Alfa, and then a big jump in price to more business-orientated phones. Something basic for domestic use would be good enough. Doesn't need phonebooks, answering machine, etc although caller id would be nice. Simple is more important than full-featured. No need for any legacy landline support. Single line is enough. It won't get heavy use.

An alternative is an ATA, then a DECT phone. This has the advantage of allowing a wider choice of phone appearance and maybe more powerful SIP settings, and the disadvantage of needing the base station wired to the ATA then to the router (so needing more than one handset), or a wireless ATA. Seems overkill if a single IP wifi handset could do the job though.

One more alternative is a mobile (cell) phone with wifi and voip, which is something I used at a previous house (with a Nokia E51). Big advantage is that it can have a prepaid SIM in the phone to use as a backup when the internet is down, although that does add a running cost. A really basic unlocked GSM wifi Android phone might be comparable on price with a good wifi IP phone. Is this a solution any of you use, and if so, do you have any recommendations for a good IP wifi phone that happens to also include a cellphone?
david3
join:2000-03-21

david3

Member

For a portable phone, I'm using a DECT phone and an ATA. But I also have a Nokia cell phone that I recently setup for VoIP use, too, so I can compare them.

If I'm in close range of the wireless router, the Nokia works fine. If I go a bit farther away (like the back yard), I have trouble making a call. The DECT phone still works fine. The DECT phone has better range than WiFi.

Also, after about 8 hours on standby with WiFi on and VoIP enabled the Nokia's battery was almost completely drained. And that's with a 30 minute registration interval. I don't recall ever draining the battery in the DECT phone, even during long phone calls.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704 to RTuesday

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to RTuesday
You may want to see:

»Ooma's new Telo adapter now can connect to WiFi networks

Not only for the Ooma discussion but also for the Snom.

jjoshua
Premium Member
join:2001-06-01
Scotch Plains, NJ

jjoshua to RTuesday

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I never had too much luck with wifi phones. It's too susceptible to jitter which affects voice quality.

I used to unlock Vtech IP8100 phones and they worked great with asterisk and most BYOD providers.

mgraves1
Premium Member
join:2004-04-05
Houston, TX

mgraves1 to RTuesday

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There's simply isn't a VoWifi phone that I would recommend for residential use.

There are some nice SIP desk phones that can attach to wifi networks. The snom 8xx series come to mind. Pricey for home use, but very nice.

At our home DECT rules the day and has for many years. Way back in 2008 when I was trying the snom m3 I penned a post advocating for SIP/DECT over an ATA and a DECT phone.

»www.mgraves.org/2008/10/ ··· ess-ata/

Most of that still rings true today.

There are some interesting new developments to consider. The Gigaset DX800A is a SMB class desk phone that has a built-in DECT base. It's not outrageously expensive and supports HDVoice very nicely, even through to the use a BT headset.

I'm also kind of interested in the new Cisco offering called "...a mobility enhanced analog telephone adapter."

»8774e4voip.com/blog/cisc ··· ffering/

It's an ATA with on-board DECT base (SPA-232D)

»8774e4voip.com/cisco-spa232d

...paired with a DECT handset called the SPA-302.

crazyk4952
Premium Member
join:2002-02-04
united state
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite
Ubiquiti UniFi AP-LR
Polycom VVX300

1 recommendation

crazyk4952 to RTuesday

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I highly recommend the Gigaset C610A IP phone. It's not a wifi phone, but I have not been able to find any wifi phones that are any good. However, it IS an IP phone. The charger is separate from the base unit, so they can be located in different rooms.

Before I had this phone, I used to use an ATA with Panasonic DECT phones. This is a huge improvement!

You are able to configure 6 different VoIP providers (any that support BYOD should work just fine).

ChristinaKSm

Anon

You may want to try the Unidata WPU-7800. I have gotten a lot of good reviews on it for business use. Still don't recommend it for residential use when their are cheaper options available.
ChristinaKSm

ChristinaKSm to RTuesday

Anon

to RTuesday
I wouldn't recommend a WiFi phone for residential VoIP. I would recommend using an analog DECT phone, like a Uniden or Vtech, with an ATA, such as the Cisco SPA112 or OBihai OBi100. With an Obihai OBi100, OBi110, or OBi202, you can use 2 accounts... one through your Localphone SIP provider and maybe the other one use GoogleVoice. The GoogleVoice calls to US and Canada are free. I opened a GoogleVoice account and set up my Uniden DECT phone with an OBi110 very easily and I am not technically talented. The call quality is inline with POTS quality.
RTuesday
join:2006-01-30

RTuesday

Member

Thanks for all the replies. The consensus seems to be that wifi voip phones are not really up to the job yet, which is about the conclusion last time I looked at this many years ago!

There's a wide open market for somebody such as Blu to produce a mid-quality simple sub-$100 phone that only works on wifi (bundled with a VoIP service), as mentioned in the Ooma Telo thread.

The Cisco stuff mentioned by mgraves1 sounds very nice but would be overkill for this (for a small business though it really has potential when the handset price drops). Thanks david3 for mentioning the range and battery life problems with using a wifi cellphone, good points.

So I'll go back to what I was doing years ago in another house, an ATA with a DECT phone (VTech CS6419-2 looks nice and simple). I do have a spare OBi100 that I was going to use somewhere else. Result will be many more boxes and wires than I'd like, but I didn't realise DECT phones were now so cheap (haven't looked at them for about a decade), it'll be a very low cost solution (with free calls using GV and cheap international with my other provider).

Trev
AcroVoice & DryVoIP Official Rep
Premium Member
join:2009-06-29
Victoria, BC

2 recommendations

Trev

Premium Member

said by RTuesday:

The consensus seems to be that wifi voip phones are not really up to the job yet, which is about the conclusion last time I looked at this many years ago!

I don't think it's a matter of "yet". I don't think you'll see this product ever due to the nature of 802.11 networks. The power required to maintain a connection is expensive, and it's not very friendly to network congestion. Basically this is the wrong technology to use for phone calls.

The winner will be regular cordless phones such as what Panasonic and Gigaset offer. For example, the Gigaset C610A-IP is my current favourite for a cordless all-in-one VoIP phone.

The cost is typically higher than an ATA + POTS Cordless, but you get to eliminate a couple of digital/analog conversions.
RTuesday
join:2006-01-30

RTuesday

Member

said by Trev:

I don't think it's a matter of "yet". I don't think you'll see this product ever due to the nature of 802.11 networks. The power required to maintain a connection is expensive, and it's not very friendly to network congestion. Basically this is the wrong technology to use for phone calls.

The winner will be regular cordless phones such as what Panasonic and Gigaset offer. For example, the Gigaset C610A-IP is my current favourite for a cordless all-in-one VoIP phone.

I must admit when I looked at the reviews of the Gigaset the number of problems people were having with usability put me off. Would be nice if there was a base model of these, without all the bells and whistles, and without the legacy POTS support. Not so much for cost, but for simplicity.

Taking another look, some of the Siemens models look interesting (but getting a second handset adds up), plus at the bottom end there's a Grandstream, very affordable. I'll have another think about that, being able to use multiple lines (accounts) with different handsets might be worth having (solve some other uses other than just the house phone). I'll download the manuals of each and see what's possible.
Middling8
join:2012-05-10
United Kingd

1 recommendation

Middling8

Member

said by RTuesday:

Taking another look, some of the Siemens models look interesting (but getting a second handset adds up),

You don't need to buy handsets of the same Gigaset model. Even a handset from a Gigaset analogue model *should* be able to pair with an IP basestation.

In Europe the Gigaset devices support GAP and you can mix and match devices from different manufacturers (about 5 years ago i had a cheap, generic handset attached to my basestation), but the US uses weird frequencies and Wikipedia seems to indicate that US DECT devices don't support it.

crazyk4952
Premium Member
join:2002-02-04
united state
Ubiquiti EdgeRouter Lite
Ubiquiti UniFi AP-LR
Polycom VVX300

crazyk4952 to RTuesday

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said by RTuesday:

I must admit when I looked at the reviews of the Gigaset the number of problems people were having with usability put me off. Would be nice if there was a base model of these, without all the bells and whistles, and without the legacy POTS support. Not so much for cost, but for simplicity.

What problems have you seen that are putting you off? I have used my phone for over a year and I can speak to some of those concerns, if you'd like.

As for the POTS support, I have never used it with a POTS line and I just simply turn that part off in the config page.
PX Eliezer704
Premium Member
join:2008-08-09
Hutt River

PX Eliezer704 to RTuesday

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said by RTuesday:

I must admit when I looked at the reviews of the Gigaset the number of problems people were having with usability put me off. .

I've posted in the past about some quirks of the Gigaset A580IP that were very annoying, but AFAICT they have fixed most of those in the Gigaset C610A-IP.

And these phones handle multiple lines and/or multiple accounts and/or multiple providers, nicely.

For example, even with one account from CallCentric with one DID, you could have multiple calls going on---you using one handset, your partner on another.

----------------------

BTW Gigaset is no longer part of Siemens.