VOIP Newbie Question

[Shelbrain]

I am fairly technical-oriented but I am not familiar with current VOIP offerings or even if this is the best approach to addressing my needs. We do not have a land line in our residence and use cell phones for the majority of our communications. I love doing research and am comfortable with trying things until they work. We are moving into a new house soon that is quite larger than the one we are currently in and I wanted to set up an intercom system where my wife can "page" the girls from Location A to Locations B, C (or both). The home is 6 bedrooms (3-4 of which would need phones), kitchen, garage and living room as well. I would also like my children to be able to use the phones to call family members that I would program into the phones and also use the intercom system to call as well (rather than yelling lol).

I think what I am looking for is a VOIP type base unit and the ability to setup multiple extensions within the residence for intercom purposes. I bought an Obihai 200 adapter several months ago but never implemented it because of our upcoming move. At that time we were only going to be using the one "land line" phone through Google Voice. Today, I was reading about FreePBX and was wondering if that would be useful for what I am trying to accomplish. FreePBX sounds pretty cool and I wouldn't mind tinkering with it in Virtual Box to see if I could get a FreePBX server up and running.

Has anyone ever tried this? Do you have any recommendations for hardware? I was looking at some of the 4-6 phone systems on Amazon where the base unit could be connected to the Obihai 200 device and the others would share the Google Voice number, but I couldn't really find any that offered paging/intercom type features. Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

 

[thiggins]

If everyone in the home has and uses cellphones, why would they want to use another phone?

Consumer VoIP has pretty much died due to cellphones and cable provider "triple-play" bundles.

Just text or use a messaging app.

 

[Shelbrain]

My primary goal would be for an intercom/paging features but having an Obihai device attached to a Google Voice account could make a good backup if my kids want to call family. I have an S5 which uses the fingerprint lock so they can't get into it if there was an emergency. As far as the intercom goes, I would love to page from one device to everywhere "Come inside" or "Come down for dinner" since the new house is two floors with a detached garage. My girls are all under 7 so they dont have their own phones yet and they cracked my wife's cell phone by accident while talking to Grandma so I would prefer they use the cheaper handheld units. I did find a Panasonic unit on Amazon where the cell phones could be linked to make and receive calls from the actual phone or I can use the Obihai device on Google Voice in the event either parent is on the cell phone. I think that would be the cheaper route, but I had an old PC around and wanted to play with some VOIP phones!
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ISKW2UU/?tag=snbforums-20

 

[netwrks]

If you must have a voip phone try majicjack. Easy to install / config. It just works.. Cheap too! I use it for work concalls and other stuff.. (crappy cell reception inside my environment).

 

[thiggins]

Well, have fun. But Google Voice might not be your best choice to build a system around.

 

[CaptainSTX]

Buy a MagicJack, connect it to your router with an Ethernet cable. Plug the MagicJack's phone jack into a cordless phone system. You can have have multiple handsets and they usually have an intercom feature. Or if you disconnect the phone cable coming from the pole from your home's existing hardwired cables and jacks at the D mark you can use the MagicJack to backfeed dial tone and phone service to multiple locations within you home.

If you really want to get fancy look for a system that will let your cell phones connect to the system by blue tooth. When you get a call on your cell it rings on your cordless phones. To make this work you need to leave your cell phone within bluetooth range of the base station of the cordless phone system. I have never tried a setup like this but they exist, just check on line or at an OfficeMax or someplace that sells a wide selection of cordless phones.

 

[Shelbrain]

Well, have fun. But Google Voice might not be your best choice to build a system around.

I've been following the on again, off again relationship between Obihai and Google Voice. Are there any other free/low cost VOIP providers you could recommend?

If you really want to get fancy look for a system that will let your cell phones connect to the system by blue tooth. When you get a call on your cell it rings on your cordless phones. To make this work you need to leave your cell phone within bluetooth range of the base station of the cordless phone system. I have never tried a setup like this but they exist, just check on line or at an OfficeMax or someplace that sells a wide selection of cordless phones.

This is the Panasonic unit I have linked above. I like your idea about locating the source where the lines comes into the home and backfeeding it. Once I close on the house I may try to go that route. Thanks for the idea.

 

[System Error Message]

For home use there isnt a practical use but for the intercom it is a fairly simple setup as you are just connecting rj11 cables to mic, speaker and a control panel/button and to a rj11 bridge (usually its only 1 line can be active at a time, hence a basic wire bridge that connects the cables).

In an office environment you will plug a VOIP capable phone or similar into a converter which connects to a gateway that can be a standard server. Some phones and similar devices have ethernet to make it much simpler to attach and use such as a digital and recent number system in a counter service.

 

[Bojan Lazic]

Hi there not sure if you are still reading this, you could get first class VoIP services from Swiss-VoIP.com Although i would suggest building up a dedicated VOIP system for calling and intercom, it can be done with Pfscence installed on an old computer that has internet access.

 

[Shelbrain]

Hi there not sure if you are still reading this, you could get first class VoIP services from Swiss-VoIP.com Although i would suggest building up a dedicated VOIP system for calling and intercom, it can be done with Pfscence installed on an old computer that has internet access.

Do you have any information on what I would need to make this happen? Could you link me to where I could do this using pfsense?

 

[System Error Message]

Do you have any information on what I would need to make this happen? Could you link me to where I could do this using pfsense?

He's trying to sell you a service without knowing where you're from. If you arent in europe and you use a swiss VOIP service its going to be very laggy with lots of breaking up. A VOIP service is simply voice data sent over IP network instead of circuit switching that standard telephones use. You basically dont need VOIP and you can use the good old circuit switched phone around your house which is as i said before just a phone cable with the phone all connected to the same wire which also require power from 1 or 2 of the rj11 wires. The technology is fairly simple so instead of a normal phone you will have a button to speak (voice input), and a speaker phone that is always on.

for VOIP you will need a server and wired LAN network for it to work with. You may be able to do this with pfsense but i suggest building a server and installing the software to use VOIP. For Local only VOIP never use a service that goes through the internet. Set up a server on your network and restrict it to your LAN only.

 

[KenZ71]

As stated above go with magic jack and cordless phones.

I've been using this setup for about 5 years. Only downside is when the cordless phones are not recharged or lost in the couch, toy pile, etc.

 

[gatorback]

If your goal is to have fixed handset in various rooms, you could use a Linksys SPA1001 at each room extension. This would require power, wired network access and a telephone for each extension. Extensions must be tied together via Asterisk, which could be run on a router or raspberry pi. There are also VOIP versions of DD-WRT firmware that can substitute or asterisk. Either way you will need a hub (Asterisk, DD-WRT, possibly Callcentric.com) to bridge the extensions. If you have not done this before, there is significant learning curve, but it is fun and rewarding.

Good luck with your project and have fun.

 

[Shelbrain]

If your goal is to have fixed handset in various rooms, you could use a Linksys SPA1001 at each room extension. This would require power, wired network access and a telephone for each extension. Extensions must be tied together via Asterisk, which could be run on a router or raspberry pi. There are also VOIP versions of DD-WRT firmware that can substitute or asterisk. Either way you will need a hub (Asterisk, DD-WRT, possibly Callcentric.com) to bridge the extensions. If you have not done this before, there is significant learning curve, but it is fun and rewarding.

Good luck with your project and have fun.

I appreciate the idea and I'm going to look into it further. We have actually moved into the house and I'm always looking for new projects to tackle.

 

[grml4d]

one thing to know : do not buy cisco...
if you plan to use a voip provider , check the list of phones : https://www.ippi.com/index.php?page=sip_parameter&lang=44
most of them are easy to setup
same goes with asterisk : http://www.asterisk.org/products/ip-phones https://www.digium.com/products/ip-phones

in your case , i think that the old phone system should be the best , you should find someone able to do that :

http://www.instructables.com/id/Simple-Intercom-From-a-Pair-of-Old-Corded-Phones/
http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/telephone4.htm

 

[migueln]

Take a look at pbx in a flash! You will acomplish what you want easily and in no time


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[gatorback]

@Shelbrain: I would be interested in which approach do you take to addressing communication within the home:

* PA broadcast system to blanket the house \ subsection? OR
* LAN communication server (Asterisk or similar) OR
* WAN communications server (Callcentric.com or Similar)

BTW, BestBuy has $9 VZN Android devices on sale Thursday, that would could serve as a nice VOIP handset (via CSipSimple SIP app):

http://deals.bbystatic.com/holiday2015/masterDesktopContent3.html