Which handset for voip?

[sherry_d]

Hey i was thinking of getting an 0800 and getting it diverted to my house phone but having read some good threads about voipfone i am being really tempeted by it.

Major drawback is most of the handsets i have seen are so expensive. i really cant afford to spend money on it. Can i get one for about £20. it doesnt have to be handsfree. i also noticed on some forums i visited that some are difficult to configure, some have sound quality issues etc so i hope you guys can help me. at the moment i have headsets i use for skype but the only downside is i cannot hear incoming calls.

 

I use a Snom 300 I think it cost £100 from Voipfone, can't remember the exact price it was around that mark.

You could use a USB Phone/Mic with the software but the quality isn't too good.

 

[Gavin Harris]

I bought one of these: http://www.voipfone.co.uk/shop.php?method=view&pid=12 and then just plugged a normal cordless phone from Comet into it. Means I can walk around with the cordless phone. Works just fine (and means I can sit outside with my wireless internet in the summer, as I did last summer, and not miss calls)!

 

[Deleted member 3454]

My hubby bought me a cheap (£9.99) Skype phone and it was very crackly. I bought a Plantronics headset with mic (it folds up for storage) around £40 and the sound quality is superb. This shows you have to spend a little to get decent quality.

 

[Rachael]

If you use vonage Sherry you can use any phone like a landline one.

 

[HC-Martin]

I use a Snom 300 I think it cost £100 from Voipfone, can't remember the exact price it was around that mark.

I am considering getting one of these - what is the sound quality like???

 

[leemason]

Which voip service are you using? I have some Mitel IP phones that are exceptional quality. They were left over from a Mitel phone system implementation. I have tested them against various other phones (i.e. Grandstream, LInksys, Aastra) and they and much better sound quality. They usually sell for in excess of £120.00 but if you are interested let me know as I don't want anywhere near this for them.

 

[cjd]

I'll try to give as unbiased answer as I can .......

The snom range of phones are far and away the best VoIP phones we've seen.They are hard to break (cheap phones physically fall apart) theirsound quality is really excellent (far better than PSTN) and they all have really useful features. The only difference between the various models is the number of useful buttons they have and the number of simultaneous calls each can receive and put on hold. The snom 300 is the best selling phone we have.

The other route to go down is to get an adapter for VoIP (an ATA). They're cigarette box sized boxes that an ordinary phone plugs into. As Gavin says, if the phone you plug in is a DECT phone you can then walk around the house with it. One model will also allow you to choose which service your outgoing calls go over - BT or VoIP - and if one service fails it switches to the other and accept calls from BT and VoIP on the same phone.
All the Linksys range are excellent and pretty cheap now too - if you go for an adapter only buy one of the Linksys range.

By and large usb phones are a pain and best avoided; they tend to be extreemly cheap and don't fully implement the SIP standards which makes them unreliable. They often sound awful and your PC must be switched on to use them.

The free softphones can be ok with the SJ phone probably better than most. With a good headset they are much improved. Plantronics are just about the best you can get - from memory they make the astronaut's gear. For heavy business use a hardware phone is a better idea long term, but to just test the service they are fine.

To use either a hardware phone or an ATA you need to be using a router to connect to the internet - if you only have a modem you will be restricted by what you can use on the connected PC

Please, don't buy anything cheap from ebay and check that whatever you do buy is SIP compliant - anything that just talks about Skype won't work on a standards based network.

 

[sherry_d]

Oh thank you guys for all the suggestions. I really would like to try your service cjd. I will see which phone i go for. i will only be getting a few phone calls on the number anyway because my business is internet based

 

[cjd]

For a few phone calls just use our free softphone and a £7 headset from Asda. Play for a few months to get the hang of it then decide whether you need to upgrade or not. We have a 10 extension PBX user doing exactly that!

 

[leemason]

The Snom phones are very good in terms of audio quality. I would second what cjd says! I have never managed to get as good quality out of a USB phones ir PC softphone as I have out of a hardware handset. I have tended to use Aastra in the past because I quite like their range but I have meant to give Snom a go on a couple of occassions.

 

[wanderer1825]

I've just bought the Siemens C460 IP from voipphone and it works perfectly for me. Sound quality is very good.

Tony

 

[welshnoonoo]

Can I jump in and ask a question?

My office has a number of network points but only 1 phone line. I need to get 3 x telephones into the office and for various reasons I can't have any additional lines put in.

Therefore, could i sold this problem with PCs and VOIP phones?

Bearing in mind, I need these phones to be used at the same time by different people, and all the PCs on on one network.

(I have a feeling this may be a thick question! )

 

[cjd]

Can I jump in and ask a question?

My office has a number of network points but only 1 phone line. I need to get 3 x telephones into the office and for various reasons I can't have any additional lines put in.

Therefore, could i sold this problem with PCs and VOIP phones?

Bearing in mind, I need these phones to be used at the same time by different people, and all the PCs on on one network.

(I have a feeling this may be a thick question! )

That's easy. You use the Virtual PBX. Extensions costs 99p per month each; silly isn't it? Info here:

https://www.voipfone.co.uk/Voipfone_User_Manual.htm#_Toc156715745

 

[KM-Tiger]

If your budget really is only £20, then don't go the VOIP route as you will need to spend more than that for a decent ATA or IP phone. You are really in the £50 -70 range. You won't be satisfied with equipment that costs less than that.

I started my VOIP experiments with a cheap ATA and an old DECT phone. The audio quality was dreadful and it put me off for a while. Right now I use a Grandstream GXP200 (controversial I know, but I love it!), but beware that with voipfone, as there were (not sure if still are) issues. I've also used a Linksys 942, Sipura 3102 with a Pansonic DECT and just got a Siemens 460 for home. All of those work well with good audio quality.

Do remember that VOIP does not enjoy the same level of reliability as PSTN. With a good internet connection it's not bad, but you are wholly dependent on that internet connection, which does not have an SLA, varies according to the time of day, etc.

 

[leemason]

I have had a lot of experience with VoIP over the past couple of years. I tend to agree that you need to spend a reasonable amount of an ATA or handset as "Kent Manufacturer" says. Over the years the quality offered by VoIP services has got much better. When I started a few years ago the quality of most was dreadful. Now you can get decent quality and better than PSTN in some cases. I have used many services and they do vary in quality enormously. I don't used voipfone but would like to try it when I get some time (soon I hope). I too have used similar Linksys, Sipura, and Grandstream hardware. In quality terms I would not go for the Grandstream as they have always disappointed against the Linksys or Sipura. I found Aastra better than either of these, and Mitel handsets better again (these aren't generally sold as SIP [the VoIP standard] phones but work very well). Snom I know to be good from others (inc. cjd) who I would trust.

If you want three extensions in an office the a virtual PBX would be great, but you really need a 20:1 business ADSL at minumim. Also it WILL degrade quality if you use this line for a lot of other access. Also try to get a router that can priorities VoIP traffic. Any more extensions and I would ssuggest using your own VoIP phone system based on Asterisk (and free Open Source system) or its much more friendly derivative Trixbox (www.trixbox.org).