VOIP Viable for residential?

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8track

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Wannabe Geek

#306567 3-Aug-2023 20:22

Residential...I have a fibre connection and Spark account, I approx pay $10 extra on my fibre for a "landline" phone.

I would like to retain the use of a landline type service as I dont use a mobile phone. I rarely use the handset as more an email kinda communicator.

There are 2 others in the family and they use cellphones so always one nearby if needed, though prefer buttons on phones, rather than touchscreens on cellphones.

Just starting to investigate ditching the $10 "landline" and shifting to VOIP.

Struggling to find definitive info on a solution.

A) Do I then need to pay someone else to have a phone number? ( therefore not worthwhile)

B) Are there better options to achieve this?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts/advice

xpd

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#3111606 3-Aug-2023 20:38

If you still want to be able to make and receive calls, yes, you'll still need a VOIP provider for around $10 a month. Plus something to handle those calls on, wether its a "normal" phone (ATA required) , or a mobile phone with an app.

I did use 2Talk (around $11) which was fine for our needs, but then found we were only getting scam calls, everyone else was on Facebook/Skype etc. So ditched it.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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speed

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Ultimate Geek

#3111610 3-Aug-2023 20:41

There is one option left for free comms - if you're willing to invest in your own infrastructure and limit your comms to other amateurs :)

https://www.nzart.org.nz/

alinz

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Master Geek

#3111627 3-Aug-2023 21:31

I've done this myself with my parents home phone.

The viability depends on whether your router has a phone port on the back currently. Otherwise you would need to buy an expensive adapter like this.

If it's viable, you could port your existing number to Hero where it would cost $2.30 a month (+ any outbound calling) for what they call "DDI".

You would then have to enter various settings into the voip page in your router. If your router does not support TLS for voip traffic (my Netcomm NF18 doesnt), then you may need to mess around with port forwarding or finding a default whitelisted local port for the traffic to pass through your firewall.

allan

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#3111632 3-Aug-2023 21:55

I'm sure there's a recent thread on here somewhere (but of course I can't find it) about needing to be careful with Spark specifically when wanting to port your landline number to a VOIP provider, that Spark don't also terminate your fibre plan.

fe31nz

1206 posts

Uber Geek

#3111649 3-Aug-2023 23:53

8track:

Hi

Residential...I have a fibre connection and Spark account, I approx pay $10 extra on my fibre for a "landline" phone.

I would like to retain the use of a landline type service as I dont use a mobile phone. I rarely use the handset as more an email kinda communicator.

There are 2 others in the family and they use cellphones so always one nearby if needed, though prefer buttons on phones, rather than touchscreens on cellphones.

Just starting to investigate ditching the $10 "landline" and shifting to VOIP.

Struggling to find definitive info on a solution.

A) Do I then need to pay someone else to have a phone number? ( therefore not worthwhile)

B) Are there better options to achieve this?

Thanks in advance for any thoughts/advice

If your landline is plugged into the fibre ONT, then it is already VOIP, and is just converted back to an analogue POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) connection inside the ONT. A charge of $10 per month is pretty standard for that level of service. On 2Degrees, I pay $15 per month for a VOIP connection to a FritzBox router that has a POTS port on it. For that price I get free calls to landlines in NZ and Australia (no toll charges). Calls to mobiles are charged for, so I use the free minutes on my mobile plan for those calls.

If you want a VOIP connection to a VOIP router or ATA (Analogue Telephone Adapter), then you need to use a different ISP or pay a separate VOIP provider. There are likely some very cheap VOIP plans out there where you pay for every call (including local ones), but only pay less than $5 per month for the connection.

scuwp

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Uber Geek

#3111666 4-Aug-2023 07:42

You can still buy push-button mobile phones, but they aren't good for much else. Maybe that's an option and dump the landline? Although you indicate you have a smartphone already so having 2 devices isn't much of an improvement.

You are already on a VOIP service, probably not much to compare as far as simplicity while keeping the old landline experience.

The simplest option would be to transition to a smart phone, that will do your emails, other messaging, and a normal phone all in one, and get rid of your home number.

Lazy is such an ugly word, I prefer to call it selective participation

xpd

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#3111668 4-Aug-2023 07:43

Put it simply, if you're a geek and happy to play with stuff and maybe save a couple of bucks here and there, sure, go for it.

For a straight "plug and play and pay" solution, its not always the best route.

Gavin / xpd / FastRaccoon / Geek of Coastguard New Zealand

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shk292

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#3111684 4-Aug-2023 08:36

allan:

I'm sure there's a recent thread on here somewhere (but of course I can't find it) about needing to be careful with Spark specifically when wanting to port your landline number to a VOIP provider, that Spark don't also terminate your fibre plan.

I had this problem - not with Spark, but Slingshot. I requested to port my phone only to Hero, and Slingshot promptly cut off everything. To make matters worse, they initially lied about both what I had requested, and what actions Hero took, before eventually admitting they stuffed up and restoring my service. I'm no longer a Slingshot customer. Top tip - never schedule any service change on a Friday, especially not before a long holiday.

For the OP, you could transfer phone line to Hero, basic line service is from $2 + GST per month. As someone else posted, you'll need some hardware such as an IP phone which you can get from Trademe for $50. There is a charge for outgoing calls, so depending on how many you make, will depend on how much you save on your current $10 pm. It works for me because we need a landline number and make basically zero outgoing calls, and I'm good at setting up techie stuff.

One advantage of doing this is it gets your VOIP line off the ISP router, so you have more flexibility with choosing routers etc

nztim

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#3111692 4-Aug-2023 08:53

Hero $2+GST is as cheap as its going to get

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

huckster

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#3111778 4-Aug-2023 13:06

I had landline and broadband (fibre) with Spark until fairly recently.

My landline is now with Hero on the $2.30 DDI plan ($2 plus GST)

This plan has call rates for all outbound calls but as we rarely make calls - it's there mainly to receive - it has yet to cost us more than a $1 or $2 extra so far.

I had a Cisco ATA already, but this is out of support now so took a punt and bought a 2nd hand Grandstream HT801 off AliXpress for about $50. Had to flash it to the latest firmware but it works.

For reasons I won't go into here I wanted to keep my broadband with Spark and this (as mentioned in another post above) meant to be 100% sure things worked/continued working I did the following:

Signed up for a DDI line with Hero - picking a new number they had available.
Setup up my ATA to get that line working.
Once happy with the above, contacted Spark and request my landline be moved to Spark's Customerlink plan
Give Spark a number to which the landline should divert (my Hero number)
As soon as that was confirmed, request porting of landline on the Hero website.
When porting completed by Hero, setup ATA for my former Spark landline number and (though yet to do) cancel the "temporary" Hero number

This meant I was on Customerlink for a couple of days. I was only billed for the days Customerlink was active which was good.

Dealing with Spark was bit harder than I would have liked as it's not something they appear to do often for residential customers. Also the person who first set it up didn't make it clear how long it would take and, despite me giving a number, it didn't divert as expected. A 2nd call was required and that person was definately on the ball.

nztim

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#3111819 4-Aug-2023 15:44

huckster:

I had landline and broadband (fibre) with Spark until fairly recently.

My landline is now with Hero on the $2.30 DDI plan ($2 plus GST)

This plan has call rates for all outbound calls but as we rarely make calls - it's there mainly to receive - it has yet to cost us more than a $1 or $2 extra so far.

I had a Cisco ATA already, but this is out of support now so took a punt and bought a 2nd hand Grandstream HT801 off AliXpress for about $50. Had to flash it to the latest firmware but it works.

For reasons I won't go into here I wanted to keep my broadband with Spark and this (as mentioned in another post above) meant to be 100% sure things worked/continued working I did the following:

Signed up for a DDI line with Hero - picking a new number they had available.
Setup up my ATA to get that line working.
Once happy with the above, contacted Spark and request my landline be moved to Spark's Customerlink plan
Give Spark a number to which the landline should divert (my Hero number)
As soon as that was confirmed, request porting of landline on the Hero website.
When porting completed by Hero, setup ATA for my former Spark landline number and (though yet to do) cancel the "temporary" Hero number
This meant I was on Customerlink for a couple of days. I was only billed for the days Customerlink was active which was good.

Dealing with Spark was bit harder than I would have liked as it's not something they appear to do often for residential customers. Also the person who first set it up didn't make it clear how long it would take and, despite me giving a number, it didn't divert as expected. A 2nd call was required and that person was definately on the ball.

You don't need to go through all that hassle for Fibre or FWA broadband if you port a number away the service just goes naked.

It is only copper broadband where if you port away the underpinning number it will disconnect the broadband as well

Any views expressed on these forums are my own and don't necessarily reflect those of my employer.

huckster

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#3111825 4-Aug-2023 16:07

nztim:

You don't need to go through all that hassle for Fibre or FWA broadband if you port a number away the service just goes naked.

It is only copper broadband where if you port away the underpinning number it will disconnect the broadband as well

In theory, I agree.

But I could not obtain confirmation from Spark that this would indeed be the case. Hence my comment "....to be 100% sure....."