Hi all
Would appreciate some advise and clarification if I may, as am considering shifting my Home Office over to something like XNet Fusion as the $$ Im paying Telecom etc are adding up.
At the moment I have 2 lines coming in (~ $50 each) , each with Call Minder, one with Faxability, then Internet Access with XNet, plus Data Charges and then Tolls with XNet. All up its coming to around $220+ / month.
Our house is a new build in which I did all the ETH wiring myself. I have a CAT5 line coming for the Phone LInes, for which Ive got 2 pairs going into an 8Port Telecom module in my Patch/Distribution point. There is an ADSL Filter on the Office Phone prior to it entering the 8 port module.
This allows me to patch any of the two incoming lines to up to 8 ports on my Patch Panel, and then distribute to any 8 outlets around the house. At the moment Im using 1 port for Office Phone, 1 port for Fax machine and 1 port for Home Phone (using a Base Station to link in 3 handsets).
For ADSL Router have a TD 8840 which holds a nice solid connection. This is connected to an unmanaged switch, although I can change that to my 3Com managed one if need be.
Ive played with Asterisk in the past, and in the future may look at using that on Fusion ... but for now Im just wanting to use our normal phones, with an ATA Device.
What Im looking at is:
* Keep the TD 8840 and put this in Half Bridge mode to then place behind it a Linksys SPA2102. Is this preferred/ideal? I know the SPA2102 will give me two lines to patch in.
* Ive read varying reports as to the number of physical phones you can have on a given line. Is it possible to patch through more than one physical phone (ie not using a base station) to a single line? Or is it single phone to single line scenario?
* Provisioning. I presume, at the onset, I can just buy the SPA2102, get an account started with Xnet and start testing in some way? Would be wanting to be 100% sure its all going to work before dropping the "Phone line" with Telecom. From peoples experience what is their downtime (phone and internet) when transferring an existing number from Telecom to "Naked DSL"?
* Seem to be leaning towards XNet as opposed to Genius, mainly because I dont need one of their handsets and need two phone lines. Genius doesnt appear to support "other devices" than their own?
* Is there anything else I havent considered? Anything you would do differently in this situation. Having the house fully wired gives me some flexibility, hence why Id be looking at a VOIP PBX sometime in the future ... as I have a virtualised server already running for Freeview and "Work"
Cheers
Craig