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Matt's VOIP Page                                        

VOIP - Voice Over Internet Protocol. 

Seems to be the thing of the moment in internet land.  I have been bitten by the VOIP bug well and truly. 

After many questions from students and friends alike I have decided to put up this general page of information for those of you willing to venture into the VOIP wilderness.

 

I hope you find all of this useful.  Cheers  Matt.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER -
As with anything in this world of consumerism
 just because this setup suits me it does not necessarily suit you
 so please do the research before you do the buying.


 

  Index

 

    Definitions

  • Webopedia - Short for Voice over Internet Protocol, a category of hardware and software that enables people to use the Internet as the transmission medium for telephone calls by sending voice data in packets using IP rather than by traditional circuit transmissions of the PSTN. One advantage of VoIP is that the telephone calls over the Internet do not incur a surcharge beyond what the user is paying for Internet access, much in the same way that the user doesn't pay for sending individual e-mails over the Internet.

  • Wikipedia - Voice over Internet Protocol, also called VoIP (pronounced "vee-oh-eye-pee" [1] or "voyp"), IP Telephony, Internet telephony, Broadband telephony, Broadband Phone and Voice over Broadband is the routing of voice conversations over the Internet or through any other IP-based network.

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    General Articles

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    VOIP Testing

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    VOIP Providers

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    Information - An Overview Statement?

This is a bit of information about the way I set things up.  If you like diagrams scroll down for a feast.

WARNING AND DISCLAIMER -
As with anything in this world of consumerism
 just because this setup suits me it does not necessarily suit you
 so please do the research before you do the buying.

  • Cheaper phone calls....

    Who can argue with that? Telephone Calls using your high speed Internet Connection
    I have finally moved into geek IT and joined a VOIP provider. I am on their $9/month plan.

    http://www.engin.com.au/public/callrates.htm
    As you can see the rates are amazing including 10c untimed national to any landline. As you can expect this is especially attractive to us as we are outside the STD range that Telstra provide untimed local calls for.

  • Phone Numbers...

    The way we have set it up is that all outgoing calls will be VOIP calls and incoming calls can be made to either of our phone numbers as normal. We can continue to use our normal phones, so their is no need to buy special hardware other than the box Engin send you.
    We will continue to be available on our normal phone number.  We also have another local telephone number which is the Engin Number

  • Required Service Providers...

    Telephone Line Rental - You need this so that you can use your phone cable into your house. Most ISPs now do this as well as the usual suspects like Telstra.

    Internet Connection ISP - You need this for your Internet Access.

    High speed would be nice, 512Kb/s or higher (I have 1500Kb/s). Although you can do VOIP on slower.

    VOIP Provider - You need this for you outgoing and incoming voice calls to be sent through a VOIP network.

  • I Use...

    Westnet for Phone Line Rental
    Westnet for Internet Connection
    Engin for VOIP

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    Matt's VOIP Diagrams

My Home Setup

Click on the image on the left to zoom in.

 

You will find I have a pretty standard setup at home for my VOIP given that I run my Office like a Small Business. 

As you can see I have setup my VOIP so that all Outgoing calls will be made through the

Voice Box 2 (LinkSys SPA – 3000) by default. 

This includes the Multi-Function Centre so that I can send and receive Faxes.

 

My Hardware - Voice Box 2 (LinkSys SPA – 3000)
Phone Adapter with 1 FXS and 1 FXO Port ATA Solution with a PSTN Gateway

Outgoing VOIP Calls

Click on the image on the left to zoom in.

 

Calls made from my Phones or Multi-Function Centre will be made over my VOIP provider using the

Voice Box 2.

Incoming Calls made to my VOIP number

Click on the image on the left to zoom in.

 

Calls made to my VOIP number will be routed to my Voice Box 2 and converted to an Analogue signal to be received by my Phones or Multi-Function Centre.

Incoming Calls made to my normal Phone (Land Line) number

Click on the image on the left to zoom in.

 

Calls made to my normal number will be passed in Analogue by my Voice Box 2 to my Phones or Multi-Function Centre.

Automatic PSTN Fallback

Click on the image on the left to zoom in.

 

Automatic PSTN Fallback (Engin refer to it as 'Switchback') is a feature that allows the Voice Box Series 2 (LinkSys SPA – 3000) to fallback to your PSTN landline when needed. This will happen if/when:

  • Power outage

  • Your ISP (Internet Service Provider) goes down

  • Your VSP (VOIP Service Provider) goes down

Calls made while any of these events have occurred will be made through my standard PSTN connection.  I receive a different dial tone when this happens.

Of course during this time I will be charged my normal call rates by my PSTN land line provider.

PSTN Answering Machine Setup

Click on the image on the left to zoom in.

 

I thought I would include this diagram for those of you who would like to know how to incorporate an Answering Machine into the setup.

With this setup the Answering Machine would only answer incoming calls made to my normal (Land Line) phone number.

My setup at home now reflects this diagram for the purposes of making to whole setup easier to use for the primary phone user of the household :-)

This means there is a blinking light on a machine when one arrives home to notify one of a missed call.

Signals

Click on the image on the left to zoom in.

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This page was last edited on Tuesday, 16 March 2010 08:04:59 PM