VOIP and sipgate

[zone1creative]

Last week I made phone of Skype and similiar services.
This week I received my first virgin media phone bill. After releasing that an national evening call on BT is a 1p per minute and on virgin it is 5p per min, I thought I would try out Sipgate.

I have signed up for free and can use the software phone without problems.

I liked the fact that you can purchase a GSM/Sipgate(wifi) phone for under £50.

Has anyone purchased the UTStarcom GF-210 for £49? What was the performance like, and does the interface match up with the likes of samsung and nokia.

Also the Pirelli DP-L10 provides the same features. Anyone used that.

[cjd]

A BT national call costs 1p?

That aside, don't buy the Starcom it's an awful phone. We sold them 18 months ago but had to withdraw them because 40% were returned. The ones that work have a very poor battery life - people expect the same as a mobile - but WiFi needs far more power.

If you need a wireless phone go for DECT or - as you are considering - a Nokia with a SIP stack still intact (you need to buy them independently for that), although it's not ideal.

Any reason you chose a German VoIP provider rather than one based here in the UK?

[leemason]

I agree with CJD. I tried the UTStarcom when it first came out and it was terrible. I have also tried other wifi IP phones and never had a good experience. The Zyxel was about the best and this wasn't great. Again I would agree with CJD that if you want something like this a DECT phone (Seimens is always good) is best for call quality.

[zone1creative]

A BT national call costs 1p?

That aside, don't buy the Starcom it's an awful phone. We sold them 18 months ago but had to withdraw them because 40% were returned. The ones that work have a very poor battery life - people expect the same as a mobile - but WiFi needs far more power.

If you need a wireless phone go for DECT or - as you are considering - a Nokia with a SIP stack still intact (you need to buy them independently for that), although it's not ideal.

Any reason you chose a German VoIP provider rather than one based here in the UK?

Thanks CJD
You saved me wasting £50 on another useless gadget.
I have 4 dect handsets running off one base station on my virgin line.

Any suggestions or recommendations for being able to use this with the sip gateway. Will I need an adapter to be able to use both.

[ServWise]

Thanks CJD
You saved me wasting £50 on another useless gadget.
I have 4 dect handsets running off one base station on my virgin line.

Any suggestions or recommendations for being able to use this with the sip gateway. Will I need an adapter to be able to use both.

Just get a sip gateway adaptor and plug your base station into that.

However if you want really good SIP/dect handsets look at the range offered by Siemens, really good quality, great range and battery life and lots of features like multiple lines and concurrent calls etc.

[leemason]

Just get a sip gateway adaptor and plug your base station into that.

However if you want really good SIP/dect handsets look at the range offered by Siemens, really good quality, great range and battery life and lots of features like multiple lines and concurrent calls etc.

Good idea. If you go for the Linksys SPA-3102 this will give you the capability to connect your DECT phone for VoIP and to use it to connect to your normal analogue phone line to accept incoming calls and to use as a lifeline should your VoIP connection fail for any reason.

[cjd]

Thanks CJD
You saved me wasting £50 on another useless gadget.
I have 4 dect handsets running off one base station on my virgin line.

Any suggestions or recommendations for being able to use this with the sip gateway. Will I need an adapter to be able to use both.

As has been suggested, the simplest is just to plug your DECT phone's base station into a VoIP adapter which plugs into your router - the Linksys models are pretty much the best.

But there is a lot more you can do with VoIP, much more than just making ordinary calls to landlines or mobiles. If that's all you want to do I wouldn't bother moving - unless your call bill is particularly high most operators have call packages that reduce call costs to a small proportion of your bill anyway.

VoIP is about free calls and clever services; not just cheap calls.

[ServWise]

As has been suggested, the simplest is just to plug your DECT phone's base station into a VoIP adapter which plugs into your router - the Linksys models are pretty much the best.

But there is a lot more you can do with VoIP, much more than just making ordinary calls to landlines or mobiles. If that's all you want to do I wouldn't bother moving - unless your call bill is particularly high most operators have call packages that reduce call costs to a small proportion of your bill anyway.

VoIP is about free calls and clever services; not just cheap calls.

Good point, The main reason I use VOIP because we have sales and support operators in Multiple countries, UK, Italy and Australia and VOIP allows us to have local numbers in those countries that can be answered by staff in any country, we use the Siemens Gigaset S450 IP that allows multiple lines and so can leverage the best VOIP provider depending on the area we are in.

CJD, One thing I have been meaning to sort out is how to do call transfers using my Gigaset S450 IP. The transfer option does not work and I'm not sure what settings I should have or how I should do the transfers. I've been itching to transfer some cold callers to your cool black-hole number for ages. :)

[cjd]

CJD, One thing I have been meaning to sort out is how to do call transfers using my Gigaset S450 IP. The transfer option does not work and I'm not sure what settings I should have or how I should do the transfers. I've been itching to transfer some cold callers to your cool black-hole number for ages. :)

Can I refer you to our fabulous user manual ;-)

How do I use it?

If you want to transfer a call just press the # key TWICE quickly. Our announcer will then say “please enter the number you want to transfer the call to” and, if you do as the good lady requests, your call will be transferred.

This is an ‘unattended’ transfer, ie once you have dialled the number to transfer the call, your line will go dead and drop into dial tone. Your caller will experience music on hold while you dial the number then ringing tone as the number is called. You, the caller, do not speak to the party you are transferring the call to.

Alternatively, you can use the transfer button if you have a new SIP telephone.

That said, you can do it from the Seimen's - I think. If you email support at voipfone co uk - one of our phone geeks will help you.