POTS to VOIP Transition Advice?

[GLadstone]

Hi Everyone,

We still receive POTS and DSL internet service from AT&T, are aware that these services will be discontinued soon, and have been researching a number of options for using rotary phones after POTS.

We're now on a bit of a time crunch and would love any advice and/or (current) links for getting ready for VOIP:

Over the past 10 days, AT&T has sent us three different letters, each with a new and accelerated DSL to "advanced digital network" internet transition timeline (Fiber is not yet available in our area).
With today's letter, we now have three days to make an appointment...

Since AT&T also offers VOIP "digital phone" service, we are preparing that this internet transition may also mean the end of our POTS.

If POTS is disconnected during this internet transition, what should we ask and/or look for to ensure our phones can safely be connected to the home jacks / wiring with VOIP service (whether with AT&T or another provider)?

While the installation technician is here, are there any "special" set-up requests we should make?

Any and all help is appreciated!

Thank you for your time.

Take care,
GLadstone

[Jack Aman]

I have had brilliant luck with an XLink BTTN.  The phone line that comes out of my cable modem goes into the XLink, and the XLink plugs into a phone outlet, thus energizing the house wiring.  Your house wiring will need to be isolated from the former POTS hookup.  The XLink works perfectly with old rotary phones and even has adjustments for sluggish dials and ramping up the REN if you have a lot of bells to ring.  As an added benefit, its Bluetooth function connects your cells (up to three) to your house phones.  In our home, calls on the "house" VOIP  line ring with the standard North American ring.  Calls on my wife's cell ring with the British "ring-ring" pattern, and calls on my cell ring with a "short and a long" pattern.  All settable in the software.  Very clever gadget, and it works brilliantly.  Good Luck.

[xhausted110]

If they are installing copper Uverse , it is just VDSL which is compatible with your existing POTS line, just make sure to tell them that you do NOT want Uverse voice, you want to keep your existing landline.

I think "advanced digital network" is just a marketing term for Uverse.

[HarrySmith]

When they switched to U-Verse here in South Florida I asked if it would support pulse dialing. The person on the phone had no idea what pulse dialing was or if it would work. They said they had to find a tech to ask. I told them not to bother as I already knew it did not. I declined the U-Verse voice and requested to keep my existing landline. I was told no problem, it would be somewhere around $80 a month! Needless to say I no longer have a landline. I have been considering the Xlink to use with my Panasonic.

[GLadstone]

Hi Everyone,

A quick update:

We've called AT&T and made an appointment to migrate from DSL to U-Verse internet while keeping our POTS.

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If they are installing copper Uverse , it is just VDSL which is compatible with your existing POTS line, just make sure to tell them that you do NOT want Uverse voice, you want to keep your existing landline.

I think "advanced digital network" is just a marketing term for Uverse.

Hi xhausted110,

You hit the nail on the head!

Looking at this web page, our new internet will be using the IPBB technology:
http://www.att.net/speedtiers

**IPBB includes ADSL2+, VDSL2, G.Fast and Ethernet technologies which provides subscribers with significantly faster download speeds compared to traditional DSL connections. All speed tiers are asymmetrical or the download/upload speed are different

Screenshot attached below.

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When they switched to U-Verse here in South Florida I asked if it would support pulse dialing. The person on the phone had no idea what pulse dialing was or if it would work. They said they had to find a tech to ask. I told them not to bother as I already knew it did not. I declined the U-Verse voice and requested to keep my existing landline. I was told no problem, it would be somewhere around $80 a month! Needless to say I no longer have a landline. I have been considering the Xlink to use with my Panasonic.

Hi HarrySmith,

Oh, good point about watching for POTS price increases!

Right now, AT&T is saying that our POTS pricing and service will remain the same.

Since we don't know how much longer we will be able to keep our POTS, or if the price will change, I'm going to continue to look into VOIP technology and options.

Please keep us updated with what you decide to do and how it works out!

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I have had brilliant luck with an XLink BTTN.  The phone line that comes out of my cable modem goes into the XLink, and the XLink plugs into a phone outlet, thus energizing the house wiring.  Your house wiring will need to be isolated from the former POTS hookup.  The XLink works perfectly with old rotary phones and even has adjustments for sluggish dials and ramping up the REN if you have a lot of bells to ring.  As an added benefit, its Bluetooth function connects your cells (up to three) to your house phones.  In our home, calls on the "house" VOIP  line ring with the standard North American ring.  Calls on my wife's cell ring with the British "ring-ring" pattern, and calls on my cell ring with a "short and a long" pattern.  All settable in the software.  Very clever gadget, and it works brilliantly.  Good Luck.

Hi Jack Aman,

Thank you for confirming that the house wiring will need to be isolated from the POTS wiring when we do make the switch to VOIP!

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Hi Jack Aman and HarrySmith,

I've been looking into the Xlink BTTN, Obi200, and Panasonic 308 / 616 PBX units as ways to continue to use our rotary phones after POTS, so I appreciate your feedback about the Xlink and Panasonic units!

Take care,
GLadstone

[Bay Area Doug]

First, observe the list of Analog Telephone Adaptors

http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=20386.0

These units work with VOIP service providers.  Personally I avoid the "cloud" solutions and go straight to SIP trunking.  I use Flowroute.com as I can register any number of ATAs and they all can ring at the same time.  If you go this route, be prepared to manually set up your ATAs, upgrade firmware, possibly struggle a little with NAT traversal, etc.  I doubt my phone bill totals more than ten bucks a month. After a while it seems easy to administer, and anyone CAN do it but not everyone would want to.

Plug-n-play companies are much more convenient - many X the price of trunking but worth the ease for many people.

[GLadstone]

Hi Bay Area Doug,

Thank you for cross-linking the Analog Telephone Adaptors topic and the additional information about SIP trunking!

At this time, we are still primarily using our POTS landline, but are researching options and have "dipped our toes" into VOIP (wifi calling) with rotary dial phones through the Xlink BTTN paired with an old bluetooth-capable android-based smart cell phone (with the the Google Voice and Google Hangouts apps installed).

Take care,
GLadstone

[dsk]

This seems to be an international problem. About 1 year ago we got fiber, and we could keep our phone number but loose the rotary option. I ported the number to a lo cost company, still no rotary but I had a Dialgizmo, and problem solved. Cost reduced by 4/5.

dsk

[dsk]

A little PS

I have played a litle wir an old X-Link too: 

     http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=20274.msg211230#msg211230

DS

[GLadstone]

Hi dsk,

This seems to be an international problem. About 1 year ago we got fiber, and we could keep our phone number but loose the rotary option. I ported the number to a lo cost company, still no rotary but I had a Dialgizmo, and problem solved. Cost reduced by 4/5.

dsk

Ah, thanks for reminding me about the Dialgizmo!

I'm glad to hear you are able to continue using your rotary phones over VOIP and are enjoying significant cost savings!

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When the AT&T Technician came out to install the U-verse Internet, we were chatting about the future of POTS in our area and he thinks we will be able to continue to use our POTS for a while yet as there are no current plans to bring fiber to our area.

Time will tell...

In the meantime, I am continuing to research options, but we are not in a real hurry to transition to VOIP as our POTS landline service has always been reliable and continues to work during power and internet outages.

This is especially important to us as we have issues with consistent internet service, so I am also researching emergency / power back-up options for those times when the power and/or internet goes out and we need to make a (non-POTS) phone call.

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I would love to hear what everyone with VOIP service is using as their emergency and/or power back-up solutions.

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A little PS

I have played a litle wir an old X-Link too:  http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=20274.msg211230#msg211230

DS

Thanks for taking the time to share how you are using the Xlink in the Xlink Bluetooth Gateway topic, reply #11 and reply #12!

I first heard of CallCentric in my research of the Obi200 devices, but did not know about "the native Android SIP Client" option.

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I would also be interested to hear your thoughts about CallCentric's service.

Please feel free to send me a PM if you do not wish to share your thoughts publicly.

Take care,
GLadstone

[dsk]

Only reason for using a Norwegian IP telephone provider is that keeping our old POTS number was most easy that way.
Callcentric does all I need and are not charging to much for anything, it is really good for everything except for porting my Norwegian phone number, and for Norwegian emergency calls. I guess this will be NO PROBLEM for you 


With Callcentric, I have a free N.Y. number, lots of extensions, an automatic switchboard service, may make rules for inbound calls, filter out sellers....


It may be others who ar that good, I just do not feel for looking for anything better.


dsk

[dc4code]

I really dislike the dialgizmo in my opinion because you can hear the DTMF tones over the handset of the rotary phone ..

If they made a dialgizmo type device that 'hides' the DTMF tones from you being able to hear them over the handset then sign me up!

[dsk]

I really dislike the dialgizmo in my opinion because you can hear the DTMF tones over the handset of the rotary phone ..

If they made a dialgizmo type device that 'hides' the DTMF tones from you being able to hear them over the handset then sign me up!

That argument is understandable, and I have finally got my X-link working with an old mobile connected to ip telephony.  Works OK at home, i think.

At the moment I am at our cabin having a gsm terminal like this: https://goo.gl/CFdQJN
It has been working for years, we use it for alarm, remote control of an owen and has a dialgizmo and a 500 telephone.
Now I feel comfortable with the beeps telling that your digit has been translated to dtmf.
(I would not miss them with a silent version)

dsk

[GLadstone]

Hi dc4code and dsk,

Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

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At the moment I am at our cabin having a gsm terminal like this: https://goo.gl/CFdQJN
It has been working for years, we use it for alarm, remote control of an owen and has a dialgizmo and a 500 telephone.
Now I feel comfortable with the beeps telling that your digit has been translated to dtmf.
(I would not miss them with a silent version)

dsk

Adding for future reference:

Shortened link above is to the following ebay auction:
Fixed-Wireless-Terminal-GSM-SIM-Phone-SIM-Card-Line-GSM-900-1800MHZ-Worldwide
https://www.ebay.com/itm/132244331952

Screenshot attached below.

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Take care,
GLadstone

[GLadstone]

Hi Everyone,

A quick update:

At the moment, I'm testing the Xlink BTTN connected to our D1 202 rotary phone (with 634BA-3 subset) as a "wifi phone" extension.

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As noted in reply #6 above and in reply #10 in the Xlink Bluetooth Gateway topic here:
http://www.classicrotaryphones.com/forum/index.php?topic=20274.msg211194#msg211194

We have a couple old bluetooth-capable android-based smart cell phones with the the Google Voice and Google Hangouts apps installed.

One of these phones is activated and the other is not.

The unactivated one was purchased primarily as a wifi device to make "local toll" and "long distance" phone calls using the Google Voice / Google Hangout apps.

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Interestingly, when pairing the unactivated smart phone to the Xlink BTTN via bluetooth:
-Calls dialed directly from the rotary phone connect to an automated message stating that the call will be directed to an operator to pay for the call.
-Calls dialed directly from the unactivated smart phone go through.

When pairing the activated smart phone to the Xlink BTTN via bluetooth:
-Calls go through whether dialed directly from the rotary phone or the smart phone.
-And, when dialing directly from the rotary phone, a message pops up on the smart phone screen asking if the call should be made with the cell phone number or the Google Voice number.

Take care,
GLadstone