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wkearney99
Guest
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 Posted:
Sat Oct 29, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject:
Re: Home VOIP gateway for outgoing calls while I'm on the ro |
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| Quote: | I use an AVM Fritz!Box Fon (www.avm.de/en) with the two phone ports
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Are the two ports independent? Can each one have it's own conversation
going (assuming a route is available, of course). Can they share the same
conversation (conference call)?
I don't see a US supplier listed for this product.
-Bill Kearney |
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Ivor Jones
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Oct 29, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject:
Re: Home VOIP gateway for outgoing calls while I'm on the ro |
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"wkearney99" <wkearney99@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:fd-dnWcJf-WG-_7eRVn-sA@speakeasy.net
| Quote: | I use an AVM Fritz!Box Fon (www.avm.de/en) with the two
phone ports
Are the two ports independent? Can each one have it's
own conversation going (assuming a route is available, of
course). Can they share the same conversation
(conference call)?
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Yes they are completely independent and can be set up for different
providers. The unit contains a PBX so theoretically I think you could link
the two ports in a conference call, but having a PABX already I've never
tried it.
| Quote: | I don't see a US supplier listed for this product.
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It's still fairly new, I don't think it's being aggressively marketed
outside of Germany, even in the UK there are only a couple of suppliers.
I could make enquiries for you if you want, but I'd need to know a little
more about the specs for ADSL on your line.
Ivor |
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wkearney99
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Oct 29, 2005 4:20 pm Post subject:
Re: Home VOIP gateway for outgoing calls while I'm on the ro |
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| Quote: | I was so underwhelmed by the quality of a voip call made via my pots
line that I just gave up on the whole idea. The problem was that the
volume was so low I had a hard time hearing the other side. When I
bumped the gain up in the SPA-3000 the echo was quite evident and much
to loud to ignore. I'd hear my own voice echo after half a second or
so. The volume of the echo was roughly the same as the person talking
at the other end.
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So you had two main problems, volume and latency. The volume question would
certainly be dependent on the quality of the ATA in the SPA-3000. The echo
might be more affected by available network bandwidth and it's latency.
Having a line with enough bandwidth is important but it has to be a
responsive link as well as 'fast enough'. I'd wonder if your setup
introduced more latency than it could overcome?
| Quote: | I now use two low-cost voip providers to essentially "host" my phone
connection for me. It is a little bit more expensive to make calls to
my neighbors (2cents/min)
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Here's the thing, right now I can depend on the ILEC to provide a consistent
level of performance. That and since I'm on a shared DSL line (with POTS)
I'm going to have the analog connection anyway. Since I'm paying for it I
might as well make use of it.
I'm not sure how often I'd bother using the POTS for VoIP redirects. Being
'able' to use it effectively would be nice, but not unless the echo and
volume were at reasonable levels. I'd certainly want to use at least one of
the inside handsets as a direct-out POTS connection should power go out, and
most external (non-PCI) FXS/FXO ATA devices seem to support this capability.
The question remains, which one 'sucks the least'?
-Bill Kearney |
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wkearney99
Guest
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| Posted:
Mon Oct 31, 2005 5:20 pm Post subject:
Re: Home VOIP gateway for outgoing calls while I'm on the ro |
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| Quote: | Are the two ports independent? Can each one have it's
own conversation going (assuming a route is available, of
course). Can they share the same conversation
(conference call)?
Yes they are completely independent and can be set up for different
providers. The unit contains a PBX so theoretically I think you could link
the two ports in a conference call, but having a PABX already I've never
tried it.
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That's good to know. I'm not sure we've got the need to use a PBX here.
I've dealt with them before (spec'ing, setup and management) so I'm well
aware of their benefits. But for the handful of extensions we'd use here at
the house it'd be overkill. Besides, I'd be more likely to go with smart
VoIP phones like Cisco (to get the graphic display features).
| Quote: | I could make enquiries for you if you want, but I'd need to know a little
more about the specs for ADSL on your line.
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Does it plug directly into the ADSL line? I was under the impression it'd
use a regular wired ethernet line from whatever connection is already active
(cable, xDSL, whatever). I ask this as there's an outside chance we might
switch to using the local telco's fiber service. So being capable of using
the ADSL line is a nice feature, I wouldn't want to get stuck with it.
Dunno what our ADSL line uses other than to say Westell and Zyxel ADSL
modems are interchangeable on it.
-Bill Kearney |
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Wolfgang S. Rupprecht
Guest
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| Posted:
Tue Nov 01, 2005 3:31 am Post subject:
Re: Home VOIP gateway for outgoing calls while I'm on the ro |
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| Quote: | So you had two main problems, volume and latency. The volume
question would certainly be dependent on the quality of the ATA in
the SPA-3000. The echo might be more affected by available network
bandwidth and it's latency. Having a line with enough bandwidth is
important but it has to be a responsive link as well as 'fast
enough'. I'd wonder if your setup introduced more latency than it
could overcome?
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My theory is that the volume is low because Sipura knows they will
have an echo problem if they bump the volume to be normal phone
volume. The way to prevent an echo (which is mathematically just a
dampened oscillation) is to cut the gain of the loop. That is exactly
what they did and why there isn't any audible echo with the factory
settings. The volume at factory settings is quite inferior to the
volume one would get on a normal analog POTS phone.
From the reading I've done, echo is a major problem in the analog
phone system. The only reason it isn't annoying normally is that the
ear is very good about removing echo if it occurs within a very short
time of the primary signal and with a signal-volume below a certain
level. The longer the echo delay the lower the volume has to be for
the ear to remove the echo. (Talking in a room with reflective walls
would be very annoying if the ear wouldn't automatically filter the
10ms - ~100ms echos one normally gets from walls that are 5ft to 50ft
away.)
The normal phone system simply punts on the echo removal for local
(short echo delay) calls, assuming that the user's ear will be able to
sort the matter out even if echo volume is quite high. Thats all nice
and good until one adds this echo to the packetization delays (20ms at
least for voip codecs) and jitter buffer delays (in the 100ms+ range).
At that point the ear refuses to filter the echos since they are too
loud for that long a delay.
Setting the jitter buffer to lower delay values will certainly cut the
delay, but it also cuts how much jitter the unit can mask. I opted to
cut the jitter buffer to the lowest value. I don't think that has
caused any problems.
The phone call that "broke the camels back" and caused me to stop
using the spa3k for anything but answering machine use was an LD call
from someone behind an older PBX in the Washington DC area calling me
in the San Francisco area on my residential POTS line. The echo was
clearly far-end echo from some mismatch at their PBX. Calls from LD
POTS users were usually a bit better, but still far from perfect.
Internally everything here runs to a cheap gigabit switch that ties
the other voip phones to the spa3k. I don't expect the 5 voip boxes
each connected to the switch with a 10Mbit/sec NIC at their end to be
able to saturate the switch's switch fabric.
| Quote: | Here's the thing, right now I can depend on the ILEC to provide a consistent
level of performance. That and since I'm on a shared DSL line (with POTS)
I'm going to have the analog connection anyway. Since I'm paying for it I
might as well make use of it.
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I'm forced to have the POTS line too. I just called and had all the
extra cost features removed and had it changed to per-minute billing.
I just think of it as part of the cost of getting ADSL. I will of
course keep this in mind when comparing the total ADSL price to cable.
| Quote: | I'm not sure how often I'd bother using the POTS for VoIP redirects. Being
'able' to use it effectively would be nice, but not unless the echo and
volume were at reasonable levels. I'd certainly want to use at least one of
the inside handsets as a direct-out POTS connection should power go out, and
most external (non-PCI) FXS/FXO ATA devices seem to support this capability.
The question remains, which one 'sucks the least'?
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I encourage you to give it a try. You may have better luck than I did
due to better external wiring to the CO etc. I can't remember if my
initial tests were with the pots on the 14kft loop to the CO or if it
was already with the 1kft loop to the local RT.
-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ |
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Tony Toews
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Nov 03, 2005 9:21 am Post subject:
Re: Home VOIP gateway for outgoing calls while I'm on the ro |
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mnc@admin.u.nu (Miguel Cruz) wrote:
| Quote: | No, I want to make outgoing calls via my home telephone line while I'm out
of town or at my coffee shop.
You have expressed an interest in not signing up with a VoIP service, but at
the risk of incurring your considerable wrath, allow me to suggest you at
least consider it as it may be the easiest solution.
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No considerable wrath at all.
| Quote: | You can sign up for prepaid pay-as-you-go service (no monthly fees), pay 2
cents a minute to USA/Canada/western Europe/developed Asia/Australia, and
configure your caller ID to be whatever you like (including your home
number). Then you can either use a standalone IP phone, or a soft phone on
your computer, and not mess around with anything at home. You save one piece
of equipment, you avoid tying up your home phone line, and you eliminate a
lot of complexity.
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Ohh, I did not know you could configure your caller ID to be whatever you want.
Actually that could be a bit scary as you could spoof someone's phone number.
I also did not realize you could get prepaid services with no monthly fees. Very,
interesting. Got any URLs of such services handy? Heck, that'd be cheaper than my
current long distance even when I'm at home.
That does change the equation quite a bit. Especially given Wolfgang's negative
comments regarding the echo and sound volumes.
Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm |
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Miguel Cruz
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Nov 03, 2005 5:20 pm Post subject:
Re: Home VOIP gateway for outgoing calls while I'm on the ro |
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Tony Toews <ttoews@telusplanet.net> wrote:
| Quote: | I also did not realize you could get prepaid services with no monthly
fees. Very, interesting. Got any URLs of such services handy? Heck,
that'd be cheaper than my current long distance even when I'm at home.
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I am using Gafachi (www.gafachi.com) which seems to be working well these
days.
miguel
--
Hit The Road! Photos from 38 countries on 5 continents: http://travel.u.nu
Latest photos: Burma; Hong Kong; Macau; Amsterdam; Grand Canyon; Amman
Airports of the world: http://airport.u.nu |
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Wolfgang S. Rupprecht
Guest
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| Posted:
Fri Nov 04, 2005 1:01 am Post subject:
Re: Home VOIP gateway for outgoing calls while I'm on the ro |
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mnc@admin.u.nu (Miguel Cruz) writes:
| Quote: | Tony Toews <ttoews@telusplanet.net> wrote:
I also did not realize you could get prepaid services with no monthly
fees. Very, interesting. Got any URLs of such services handy? Heck,
that'd be cheaper than my current long distance even when I'm at home.
I am using Gafachi (www.gafachi.com) which seems to be working well these
days.
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I use both Gefachi and Teliax (www.teliax.com). They have roughly
similar plans (no monthly for an outgoing-only account and
2cents/min.)
For incoming calls we have two ipkall numbers. The biggest problem
with those was that our local friends object to making expensive long
distance calls to call us across town. Thats why I ended up getting
teliax, just for the local phone number. The trick is to look for
pay-as-you-go "business" plans.
http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/VOIP+Service+Providers+Business
One thing I didn't realize when I signed up for an incoming number
with teliax was that incoming calls cost the same as outgoing. It
threw me for a bit of a loop at first, but than I realized that
compared to my total POTS bill it isn't a big enough deal moneywise to
worry about yet.
-wolfgang
--
Wolfgang S. Rupprecht http://www.wsrcc.com/wolfgang/ |
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Tony Toews
Guest
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| Posted:
Sat Nov 05, 2005 5:20 pm Post subject:
Re: Home VOIP gateway for outgoing calls while I'm on the ro |
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mnc@admin.u.nu (Miguel Cruz) wrote:
| Quote: | Tony Toews <ttoews@telusplanet.net> wrote:
I also did not realize you could get prepaid services with no monthly
fees. Very, interesting. Got any URLs of such services handy? Heck,
that'd be cheaper than my current long distance even when I'm at home.
I am using Gafachi (www.gafachi.com) which seems to be working well these
days.
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And they even take PayPal. Very nice. I will definitely be giving this one a try in
a day or two.
Thanks for disagreeing with me. <smile>
Tony
--
Tony Toews, Microsoft Access MVP
Please respond only in the newsgroups so that others can
read the entire thread of messages.
Microsoft Access Links, Hints, Tips & Accounting Systems at
http://www.granite.ab.ca/accsmstr.htm |
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