Converting home phone to VOIP

Zarf · 28 Sep 2014 at 18:05

Hi, I'm hoping for some advice or recommendations for turning my normal BT phone line into a VOIP system. It's mainly for fun, but i'm hoping to be able to stop using the Telephone extensions around the house as the wiring is pretty rubbish and impacts on our ADSL performance, even with an interstitial faceplate.
I'd also like to be able to put a VOIP client on various mobile devices to send/receive calls on my BT landline.

So far I've picked up a Linksys SPA3102 to provide the gateway to the PSTN and a PAP2T to let me use my existing DECT phone on VOIP, not set them up yet though.
Do I also need to set up a PBX like Asterisk, and if so are there any friendlier/easier alternatives considering the fairly simple intended usage? I've got an ESXi box so there's no trouble putting whatever I need on a VM.

Any advice or recommendations welcome, I've had a quick google but couldn't find anything written recently.

deadfreak · 30 Sep 2014 at 20:41

FreePBX would do what you want.
Freeswitch also but more complicated.

bremen1874 · 1 Oct 2014 at 03:34

Ignoring the 'just out of interest' element of your question, why do you need telephone extensions when DECT phones exist (and you mention you already have them)?

Zarf · 1 Oct 2014 at 11:24

bremen1874 said:
Ignoring the 'just out of interest' element of your question, why do you need telephone extensions when DECT phones exist (and you mention you already have them)?

It's quite a big house and the Master Socket is at one end, If the DECT base station is located there it doesn't cover the whole house. Also, I can only pair 4 phones to it, but could use a couple extra.

bremen1874 · 1 Oct 2014 at 11:35

It sounds like you need better DECT kit.

My Panasonic base station allows for six handsets. They also sell DECT repeaters to extend the range if you need to.

I do know that the range is pretty good compared to some. Mine work two doors away, my Parent's BT phones barely reach the end of their garden.

Zarf · 1 Oct 2014 at 13:11

bremen1874 said:
It sounds like you need better DECT kit.

My Panasonic base station allows for six handsets. They also sell DECT repeaters to extend the range if you need to.

I do know that the range is pretty good compared to some. Mine work two doors away, my Parent's BT phones barely reach the end of their garden.

Yeah, I know there are other solutions, but I figured it would be more interesting to set up VOIP.

leigh_boy · 1 Oct 2014 at 13:13

you then open your self up to hacking and massive bills.
seen it a few times 1st hand.

Shad · 1 Oct 2014 at 18:21

leigh_boy said:
you then open your self up to hacking and massive bills.
seen it a few times 1st hand.

Not necessarily. Most of those hacks revolve around an open port on your firewall. I use PBX in a Flash with a SIP trunk from sipgate and it works perfectly without any open ports or other firewall changes. Ok so it took a while to set it up, but I can make and receive calls just fine.