Hi Hugh!
It seems as if an Unlimitel.ca DID plus a some kind of ATA thingee
might do the trick. I have no experience so I don't know the gotchas,
but here are some things I wonder about:
- is the service going to be reliable or annoying? No point in going
to a lot of effort and ending up with something annoying. POTS is
an easy alternative. (I will be doing tech support for this phone
from Toronto which might be difficult without a working phone. So
it pretty much "just work".)
As mentioned, depends on your ISP.
What's your time worth? If you're doing this for fun to get into
Asterisk and VOIP, go for it.
If you want quick & easy, go with POTS.
- is Unlimitel a reasonable provider for this kind of application?
They seem much cheaper than the retail VoIP providers ($2.50/month
for a DID + $0.011 per minute within their coverage area). Do you
recommend other choices?
I've only tried their service a few times but what I've seen has been good.
They're also quite good about sending out CDR's (call detail records)
every day
so you can monitor usage
- Is it a good idea to buy their recommended Mediatrix 2102 -
Residential VoIP Access Device ($149.00 + S&H)?
....
- I presume that this works well with Unlimitel since they sell it.
Is it likely to work well with other providers? With Asterisk (I
might set up Asterisk at another site some day)?
No idea.
- alternatively, people on this list seem to have been able to unlock
Linksys Pap2 devices sold for connecting to Vonage. These are
cheaper (~$65) than the Mediatrix 2102. Is it as good? Better?
Would it connect well to Unlimitel?
The right way to deploy these seems to be behind the broadband
router. How much grief does deployment behind NAT cause?
Is an unlocked Pap2 easy to set up, or is it an underdocumented
adventure?
That's what I'm using, with Unlimitel.
There is a web interface which is easy to use, and exposes quite
enough options for you to get yourself in trouble. :-)
Nat is annoying but the PAP2 seems to work OK.
- alternative 3: the "Linksys VOIP Wireless-G Broadband Router With 2
Phone Ports (WRT54GP2-CA)" ($154 at futureshop). Is this locked to
Vonnage? The Futureshop site's description does not mention Vonage.
Since it includes the router, it avoids the inside/outside question
entirely. It includes Wireless G, which isn't needed and might be
a security issue (I hope that it can be turned off). I wonder if
there is Open Source firmware for this.
Hint: Any VOIP thing you buy from a big box store in Ontario
this year will probably be locked to Vonage.
- Since DIDs are so cheap from Unlimitel, it might be nice to have two
(in different area codes). Is it easy to support two with these
devices? Can the calls be routed to a single handset or would two
handsets be required/adviseable? (All three devices have two FXS ports.)
The Linksys has two phone lines, you'd need two devices or a
residential 2-line POTS phone.
Remember that Unlimitel will route calls for you through their
network , so this 2nd line may not save you much. Take a close
look at their tariffs.
Anyway, get one line working at a time :-)
Cheers
Ian
