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Old 11-10-2020, 04:41 PM   #41
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I use an Obihai Obi100 with www.voip.ms as VoIP provider for all my telephony needs. Only "landlines" and no cell service. Paying $0.85/month to have the phone number, plus 1 cent/minute for any inbound or outbound calls. They also have a $5.00/month unlimited service, but considering my ultra-low monthly call volume, the pay-by-the-minute plan is more cost effective.

In terms of cell phone needs (which would still be useful mostly for a car emergency), I have yet to find a pay-as-you-go cell plan for less than $10/month (tx included) with unlimited voice + text. There was Tello.com (with Sprint, soon to be with T-Mobile as carrier) but they became greedy recently. Also found a Good2Go mobile, which on paper seemed cost-effective, but then there was an undisclosed $2.0 fee (plus tax!) which threw me off :-).
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Old 11-10-2020, 05:16 PM   #42
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We finally tried Ooma for the office fax line after having no success with MagicJack, Obihai, and one other one I forget. Works fine -- there's a special setting for fax use.

They DO bill monthly, and mine is usually a few cents different month to month. And you can't pay for a year in advance. This annoys me since the business doesn't have a credit card, only debit, and I have to remember to adjust the amount each month.

We've never used 911, but when you set it up you tell it the address, and it's confirmed on the website, so I expect it would work OK.
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Old 11-10-2020, 07:15 PM   #43
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I bought an ooma back when they first came out (2005 I believe?} and have had it ever since. "Back in the day" when you bought the unit there was no monthly charge, even for taxes. To this day I still have no charges, but I only get basic service, no premium features. It still works great, and ranks up there with my two Sirius "lifetime subscriptions" I bought when they first came out as one of my better investments!
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Old 11-18-2020, 08:17 AM   #44
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I just bought a local number from voip.ms and then bought an ATA ("analog terminal adapter") that connects my old-style phones to The Internet and then over to voip.ms. I give them $25 a couple of times a year when my balance goes down below $10.
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Old 11-18-2020, 08:22 AM   #45
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I just bought a local number from voip.ms and then bought an ATA ("analog terminal adapter") that connects my old-style phones to The Internet and then over to voip.ms. I give them $25 a couple of times a year when my balance goes down below $10.
Which brand of ATA do you have?

From what I can tell is that the ATA connects to the router with an Ethernet cable and that a landline phone connects to the ATA. How do I connect the other landline phones in the house?

My Verizon landline service jumped by 25% this last month.
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Old 11-18-2020, 08:26 AM   #46
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Originally Posted by smihaila View Post
I use an Obihai Obi100 with www.voip.ms as VoIP provider for all my telephony needs. Only "landlines" and no cell service. Paying $0.85/month to have the phone number, plus 1 cent/minute for any inbound or outbound calls. They also have a $5.00/month unlimited service, but considering my ultra-low monthly call volume, the pay-by-the-minute plan is more cost effective.
I am confused how this works if there are multiple landline phones that I would want to use. We have 3 cordless phones in the house. They are currently connected to the existing telephone jacks in the house.
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Old 11-18-2020, 08:36 AM   #47
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Originally Posted by music-and-ski View Post
I just bought a local number from voip.ms and then bought an ATA ("analog terminal adapter") that connects my old-style phones to The Internet and then over to voip.ms. I give them $25 a couple of times a year when my balance goes down below $10.
Good choice. I'm also using them for all my telephony needs.
Highly recommended.
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Old 11-18-2020, 08:43 AM   #48
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Originally Posted by retire-early View Post
Which brand of ATA do you have?

From what I can tell is that the ATA connects to the router with an Ethernet cable and that a landline phone connects to the ATA. How do I connect the other landline phones in the house?

My Verizon landline service jumped by 25% this last month.
I'm not the user whom your question is addressed to, but I can share my experience / setup. I am using Obihai Obi100, which I've bought for about $50 several years ago. There is the Obi200 series in the meantime, if you can get a good pricing on that, go for it.

In general, you can use any ATA brands and models. Obihai is a bit geeky / the UI feels like for more tech-oriented people, and very granular (many configuration details). Other good brands are: Cisco (they had a Sipura brand in the past, I think the Cisco VoIP team left Cisco and spun off Obihai), Grandstream etc.

Try to avoid built-in phone + ATA combinations (like those digital phones you see in the movies when they show business offices), because they are harder to upgrade or configure, may require a central server or PoE (Power Over Ethernet). Discrete components (like in PCs and routers) are always preferred, for flexibility and easy replacement of only once component should it fail.

A separate, little ATA box is very portable and you can carry it with you even when you travel.

For multi-line phone setups, the easiest route is to by a DECT 6.0 phone set, with 1 x base station + n x handsets. Or, if you prefer a wired RJ11 setup, buy an ATA with more analog (RJ11 connectors) ports.
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Old 11-18-2020, 08:45 AM   #49
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Originally Posted by retire-early View Post
I am confused how this works if there are multiple landline phones that I would want to use. We have 3 cordless phones in the house. They are currently connected to the existing telephone jacks in the house.
The Obi unit plugs into a phone jack, and then broadcasts to all the phone jacks in your home so that all your existing wired and wireless phones work as normal.
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Old 11-18-2020, 08:46 AM   #50
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I am confused how this works if there are multiple landline phones that I would want to use. We have 3 cordless phones in the house. They are currently connected to the existing telephone jacks in the house.
Why are those 3 cordless phones connected to telephone jacks? Is is because you have separate landline phone lines, each with its own number allocated by the telecom company?

Because otherwise, you could just have the base / main phone station plugged in, and all the other phones would wirelessly connect to the base. And DECT 6.0 is a solid wireless protocol, featuring less cross-band interference, and being audio conveyed digitally through a radio channel, you obviously don't get audio noise on the line, so the voice quality is superior.
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Old 11-18-2020, 08:48 AM   #51
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The Obi unit plugs into a phone jack, and then broadcasts to all the phone jacks in your home so that all your existing wired and wireless phones work as normal.
Yes, multiple phone jacks sharing the same RJ11 output port out of an ATA device, is another viable topology to use. Although one has to pay attention to impedance reduction on the line. But for a handful of phones, it should be ok.
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Old 11-18-2020, 09:25 AM   #52
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Originally Posted by smihaila View Post
Why are those 3 cordless phones connected to telephone jacks? Is is because you have separate landline phone lines, each with its own number allocated by the telecom company?

Because otherwise, you could just have the base / main phone station plugged in, and all the other phones would wirelessly connect to the base. And DECT 6.0 is a solid wireless protocol, featuring less cross-band interference, and being audio conveyed digitally through a radio channel, you obviously don't get audio noise on the line, so the voice quality is superior.
I am not sure that the cordless phones are DECT 6.0
I have the box for the two that are AT&T branded so I will go check.
The other cordless phone is another brand.

Edit:
The AT&T set is DECT 6.0
The other is a Uniden and is also DECT 6.0

Because I don't know what I am doing the Uniden and the AT&T base are both connected to a phone jack.

.
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Old 11-18-2020, 09:54 AM   #53
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Which brand of ATA do you have?

From what I can tell is that the ATA connects to the router with an Ethernet cable and that a landline phone connects to the ATA. How do I connect the other landline phones in the house?

My Verizon landline service jumped by 25% this last month.
My ATA is old, you wouldn't it. I think it's Cisco. I was looking at buying a Grandstream GS-HT802 for my other house.

Generally, the land lines in your house are already connected together. So, you should be able to get a telephone line splitter, and plug one split into your phone, and another split into your existing wall jack, and that wall jack will carry the signal to the other phones plugged into other wall jacks. I haven't tried this, but it should work.

What I have done is connected a telephone cable directly into the junction box where the old telephone cable came in.
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Old 11-18-2020, 10:19 AM   #54
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What I have done is connected a telephone cable directly into the junction box where the old telephone cable came in.
Right. And in general, if you backfeed your Ooma or OBIhia to your phone system, you should assure your line is disconnected from the phone network at the junction box.
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Old 11-18-2020, 10:40 AM   #55
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In Jan. 2019, Verizon came and put a box in my garage which converts fiber to signal for landline phones. I know I have to disconnect that box.

So if I get an ATA, it would connect to my router.

router --- ATA --- a phone jack

Connect landline phones to other phone jacks as before ?

Do I have that right?
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Old 11-18-2020, 11:44 AM   #56
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Originally Posted by retire-early View Post
In Jan. 2019, Verizon came and put a box in my garage which converts fiber to signal for landline phones. I know I have to disconnect that box.

So if I get an ATA, it would connect to my router.

router --- ATA --- a phone jack

Connect landline phones to other phone jacks as before ?

Do I have that right?
I think that should work.
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Old 11-18-2020, 11:58 AM   #57
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+1.

But before connecting the ATA's RJ11 port to your internal phone wiring in the house, after you disconnect the verizon box, first check that the line is "dry" - to make sure it's not connected into anything.
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Old 11-18-2020, 12:58 PM   #58
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^Right. Usually, where the phone enters the house, outside, there's a 'network interface' box. Open that up and disconnect the house from the external phone network before "taking over" your internal RJ11 wiring.
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Old 11-18-2020, 01:34 PM   #59
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My mom has decided to return the Ooma.
It was on clearance at Target for $24, but since she is already paying for a landline, she doesn't want to spend another ~$6 a month in taxes for the Ooma. She doesn't make that many domestic long distance calls to justify the money.
I don't think she understood how it works. You migrate your landline phone number over to Ooma. It replaces the cost of your landline without losing the landline experience. We've had it for several years and the service has been flawless.
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Old 11-18-2020, 02:34 PM   #60
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I mostly keep an soma so I can have a landline number to give to people and businesses that I don't want to have my cell number.
I used the ooma today to make a call for the 1st time in months. Crappy call quality.

But I will keep paying the taxes because it lets me give a number where I could (possibly) be reached, but I don't get all the spam.
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