Voip system

Won't be getting fibre for another couple of years so will stick with 2 (pairs) x ISDN and 1 x analogue with 4 to 5 meg of copper broadband (with semi regular interruptions)

Will review after 12 months un-interrupted (ever) fibre.....
 

PREES

Member
Location
SW Wales
@Pheasant Surprise sorry if I missed or ignored your previous advice! What sort of range can you get out of a DECT phone and can anyone recommend a specific model? Presumably you do still use a mobile app to take calls when you are off site?
 
@Pheasant Surprise sorry if I missed or ignored your previous advice! What sort of range can you get out of a DECT phone and can anyone recommend a specific model? Presumably you do still use a mobile app to take calls when you are off site?
DECT offers much better range than WiFi - at least several hundred metres if not sub kilometre with the right gear. Note a proper system would be setup with repeaters, strategically placed to give you adequate reception.

DECT was designed from the ground up for voice carriage rather than WiFi which is really a computer networking technology that has been adapted (or dropped in) for voice isn't really a good solution for many reasons.

A specialist voice services / telephony / PBX company will be able to advise and guide far better than me. I would seek one out and discuss your requirements so they can suggest a fit for purpose solution. This sort of thing would be bread and butter for them.
 

Steevo

Member
Location
Gloucestershire
Even BT are getting on board now, offering their "Cloudphone" service for business. Amazing how simple standard technology can be dressed up as new fangled things with new features etc. and a ruddy great premium added on top.
 
@PREES have a look at the attached Multicell Site Planning document from Siemens for their latest Pro series N870 DECT base.

This unit can be scaled and configured in multiple ways. It is not massively expensive. You will find them online for under £300 plus VAT each.
 

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krikey

New Member
I've been using VoIP services for years now for home and business, starting with Sipgate way back in the day as a cheap and cheerful provider. We're now using a company called Gradwell who are UK based and have been for over 7 years and cannot fault their service. Having a fast internet connection is not necessarily what you need, as you can run VoIP on slower ADSL connections too. There's a tool here http://voipqualitytest.com/ that you can run to see how your existing line fares, but I would run this from a computer that is wired to your router, not a WiFI connected computer as a WiFi connection will never give you the best results anyway, even if you have a fancy mesh system installed.

What you do need is an unfettered or relatively un-contended connection for it to work well and for you not to sound like a Dalek on the other end. That's to say, if you start streaming Netflix while trying to make a VoIP call, you're likely to cause the VoIP call to fail or the quality to drop significantly as to annoy the hell out of you.

Many newer internet routers have something called QoS (Quality of Service) or traffic shaping. This can prioritise certain types of internet traffic, so that VoIP takes priority over everything else when you're using your broadband connection and you're more likely to get a good voice connection.

A single VoIP connection really doesn't need that much bandwidth at around 90Kbits up and down (a Kbit is a thousanth of a Mbit and you're internet connection "should" be measured in MBit speeds) but its more important to have a solid and reliable connection. The ping/jitter/delay arguably is more important and as has already been mentioned, satellite internet is no good for VoIP as the delays are huge.

I would not use the softphone solution on your mobile as you're likely to be disillusioned by its reliability, trust me, I've used quite a few over the years, hoping that perhaps this new one will do better. As a mobile phone relies on a WiFi or 3G/4G connection, this adds an additional layer of faff that could cause your VoIP to fail, but your broadband could be totally capable. Go with a hardware solution like the Gigaset C430HX DECT handset kit which is VoIP and landline compatible and has good range too.

If you're feeling flush, get a standard ADSL connection just for VoIP and another for everything else. If one line fails, you can then always switch to the other too, assuming you chose a different ADSL provider ie BT & Vodafone for example.

I'm not a VoIP specialist, nor do I work in the industry but I would class myself as a VoIP evangelist.
 
I've been using VoIP services for years now for home and business, starting with Sipgate way back in the day as a cheap and cheerful provider. We're now using a company called Gradwell who are UK based and have been for over 7 years and cannot fault their service. Having a fast internet connection is not necessarily what you need, as you can run VoIP on slower ADSL connections too. There's a tool here http://voipqualitytest.com/ that you can run to see how your existing line fares, but I would run this from a computer that is wired to your router, not a WiFI connected computer as a WiFi connection will never give you the best results anyway, even if you have a fancy mesh system installed.

What you do need is an unfettered or relatively un-contended connection for it to work well and for you not to sound like a Dalek on the other end. That's to say, if you start streaming Netflix while trying to make a VoIP call, you're likely to cause the VoIP call to fail or the quality to drop significantly as to annoy the hell out of you.

Many newer internet routers have something called QoS (Quality of Service) or traffic shaping. This can prioritise certain types of internet traffic, so that VoIP takes priority over everything else when you're using your broadband connection and you're more likely to get a good voice connection.

A single VoIP connection really doesn't need that much bandwidth at around 90Kbits up and down (a Kbit is a thousanth of a Mbit and you're internet connection "should" be measured in MBit speeds) but its more important to have a solid and reliable connection. The ping/jitter/delay arguably is more important and as has already been mentioned, satellite internet is no good for VoIP as the delays are huge.

I would not use the softphone solution on your mobile as you're likely to be disillusioned by its reliability, trust me, I've used quite a few over the years, hoping that perhaps this new one will do better. As a mobile phone relies on a WiFi or 3G/4G connection, this adds an additional layer of faff that could cause your VoIP to fail, but your broadband could be totally capable. Go with a hardware solution like the Gigaset C430HX DECT handset kit which is VoIP and landline compatible and has good range too.

If you're feeling flush, get a standard ADSL connection just for VoIP and another for everything else. If one line fails, you can then always switch to the other too, assuming you chose a different ADSL provider ie BT & Vodafone for example.

I'm not a VoIP specialist, nor do I work in the industry but I would class myself as a VoIP evangelist.

Agree that VOIP with an unstable internet connection will be a non starter.
Having 2 providers doesn’t necessarily help if all your connections come down the same 5 pair underground cable.
 

krikey

New Member
Agree that VOIP with an unstable internet connection will be a non starter.
Having 2 providers doesn’t necessarily help if all your connections come down the same 5 pair underground cable.

Yes you're right that two providers will likely use the same piece of physical wire so if someone broke that cable or the telegraph pole carrying all the cables came down, both services would go down. However by choosing two different mainstream providers, if one of them has a failure on their own kit at the exchange or beyond, then the other connection should still work.
 
Agree that VOIP with an unstable internet connection will be a non starter.
Having 2 providers doesn’t necessarily help if all your connections come down the same 5 pair underground cable.
Best way is two completely independant services like cable/phone/fibre together with 4G. As long as you can’t get the latter ;)

This gives you the best odds of having a working connection. Two providers down the same conduit/pole path is a bit of a waste of time.
 

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