[LINK] Q re VoIP phones, RF phones and ADSL

[Richard Chirgwin]

Tom Worthington wrote:
> At 11:53 AM 11/06/2007, Jan Whitaker wrote:
>> ... considering VoIP phones as a replacement for my dying analogue 
>> handsets. ...
>
> If your ADSL line comes bundled with a phone line, you might want to 
> keep a cheap wired handset plugged in for emergency calls. If the 
> mains power fails, your VoIP service will likely be unusable, whereas 
> an old fashioned phone will keep working.
Not just if the power fails. Also if anything at all prevents you from 
accessing the VoIP service IP address.

There's another aspect to VoIP services which I have observed but not 
studied in-depth. The VoIP provider has to provision sufficient 
VoIP-PSTN connections to handle its call load. I've tested five 
providers at the office, and we have encountered this kind of congestion 
from most of them (in the Asterisk logs we see entries from the VoIP 
provider indicating that it has no circuits available to complete the 
call ... if you have the patience to wade through the log! What I would 
do for a nice Asterisk Log Analyser...).

So I would always tell the potential VoIP user to keep one foot in the 
olde worlde regardless.

RC

>
>> Second, do DECT phones interfere with wireless LANs, or vice versa? ...
>
> I had problems with DECT and WiFi equipment right next to each other. 
> About 1m separation seemed to fix things. But after a year or so I 
> gave up on both the VoIP and normal phone; I decided to just use my 
> mobile phone instead.
>
> You can buy DECT cordless phones with a VoIP interface in the base 
> station. These allow you to select the normal phone line or VoIP 
> service on a call by call basis. You can also get cordless WiFi VoIP 
> handsets, but these cost more. Putting a DECT and a WiFi handset next 
> to each other when both are transmitting may cause interference, but 
> you are unlikely to be talking on both at once.
>
> For some VoIP products see my home office shop: 
> <http://astore.amazon.com/home-office-20/?node=3>.
>
>
>
> Tom Worthington FACS HLM tom.worthington at tomw.net.au Ph: 0419 496150
> Director, Tomw Communications Pty Ltd            ABN: 17 088 714 309
> PO Box 13, Belconnen ACT 2617                http://www.tomw.net.au/
> Visiting Fellow, ANU      Blog: http://www.tomw.net.au/blog/atom.xml 
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