Hi all,

I'm looking for a way to be able to take calls made to my Australian number through my existing Australian VoIP provider while in New Zealand. The problem being that the area I'd need it in (Nearest major town is Palmerston North) has limited internet options. The best option seems to be Spark Rural Wireless, but from my browsing around the forums it seems I wouldn't be able to use it for VoIP. ADSL is a bit hit and miss, some providers say it is available in the area, others say not, so I'm just assuming it isn't for one reason or another.

Does anyone have any suggestions on how I could make this work? Or am I better off just getting my Australian VoIP provider to forward the call to an NZ mobile or landline number and pay the international rates? Or getting the Spark Rural Wireless with Landline and forwarding to that number? The only issue I have with this would be how to make any outgoing calls show the Australian number and also losing the ability to transfer calls to other operators within the hosted PBX, etc.

Would the equivalent small business product from Spark allow VoIP?

I've seen a VPN solution suggested on the forums. Is this reliable? Can anyone provide some further detail on what's required, like hardware, software, etc.? How difficult would this be to troubleshoot remotely if something goes wrong while I'm in Australia?

What about using a mobile phone SIM in a 3rd-party GSM modem? My concern with this way would be the low monthly data allowance.

Could a softphone app be made reliable? I have used this method before and it wasn't the greatest. I use a Yealink W56 IP phone in Australia, which has been excellent, so I'd like to have the same in NZ.

Thanks for any advice!