Computers & Electronics

VOIP - Looking for suggestions for a home and cell phone

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Sr. Member
Jun 8, 2007
945 posts
286 upvotes
Oshawa

VOIP - Looking for suggestions for a home and cell phone

Been reading for awhile now trying to figure out what direction to go with a couple issues. Thought I would throw it out there for you guys and some helpful suggestions.

Current setup is as follows.
Fido Cell Phone x 2 (me and wife)
Fido Home Phone Service

Work just gave me a cell phone that I can use moderately along with 6GB of data. So now I want to dump my cell phone (Contract up Next Month). That said I want to hold onto the number, forward calls to my new cell and ideally forward text messages. Right now I have it setup to forward calls and email me all the text messages.
Wifes phone I plan on switching to a Telus Corp plan next month.

Home Phone I am paying $15 a month but once I cancel the cell phones with fido this goes up to $35 I believe. So this one I also want to port over to voip. This one needs 911 service and light usage to Canada and a USA. Ideally Voicemail to Email as I hate dialing in to check voicemail ;-)

I was pondering dropping by Canada Computers tomorrow and picking up a Cisco SPA112. Setup an account with Voip.ms and toy around with things.

So this is where I ask for you words of wisdom...
Is this ok hardware to pickup, or should I be patient and order a Obihai device of some sort?

Thoughts on setup and providers to use for the cell phone and homephone?

I have read so much my brain is mush. I kinda feel I just got to get some hardware in my hand and start testing things out.

Cheers and many thanks in advance!

Mike
9 replies
Deal Fanatic
May 13, 2005
5125 posts
5808 upvotes
Montreal
Both of you have cellphones ==> no need for home phone.

1) Register an account at freephoneline.ca and pay $25 to port your Fido Home Phone number over. This will keep this number for life and pay $0 / month. Setup to forward / ring both of your cellphones so anyone call your home phone, it will ring both your cellphones.

If you don't like this, you could later buy Obi200 and pay freephoneline $50 for unlock key to use with your Obi200. You still pay $0 / month for this home phone.

2) Do the similar setup as 1) for your old cellphone and forward it to your new cellphone. You will loose the text message if you use freephoneline. If you don't want to loose text message, you could register account at fongo.ca and port your number over. This way you could receive free incoming text message via Fongo app.
Sr. Member
Jun 8, 2007
945 posts
286 upvotes
Oshawa
Thanks for the reply X360...

Unfortunately we need a home phone. We have a couple young kids that will be of age soon to stay home alone. I think having a physical device that can be found quickly for emergency purposes is a must for a least a few more years.

I suppose I will start looking for this answer myself, but thoughts on Freephoneline.ca vs voip.ms? Both offer E911 I believe. freephoneline has a higher setup fee I think but less monthly cost..

Any other options for that people might recommend for transfer of the cell phone. I don't want to give up text messages on this number. It looks like there is some support on voip.ms and freephoneline. Anyone have any experience with SMS on these?

I have pondered just using Speakout at $25 a year but they don't do call forwarding. I can still have the phone email me every text message and phone call. Still not ideal.

Cheers and thanks again!



X360 wrote: Both of you have cellphones ==> no need for home phone.

1) Register an account at freephoneline.ca and pay $25 to port your Fido Home Phone number over. This will keep this number for life and pay $0 / month. Setup to forward / ring both of your cellphones so anyone call your home phone, it will ring both your cellphones.

If you don't like this, you could later buy Obi200 and pay freephoneline $50 for unlock key to use with your Obi200. You still pay $0 / month for this home phone.

2) Do the similar setup as 1) for your old cellphone and forward it to your new cellphone. You will loose the text message if you use freephoneline. If you don't want to loose text message, you could register account at fongo.ca and port your number over. This way you could receive free incoming text message via Fongo app.
Deal Fanatic
Nov 11, 2008
8974 posts
2827 upvotes
The SPA112 is pretty crappy. I'm speaking from past experience from earlier revisions. I'm not sure if it has improved, though I am sure it has.

I recommend the OBI ATA over the SPA112. VOIP.MS has more bells and whistles and its catered to both home/business. It's also gets more expensive the more you use it because of the variable costs but still a fraction less than a regular POTS line.

Even if call forward is included, keep in mind that it's not free. Airtime charges still occur. Example, If I called your personal number and it forwarded to your current number, and we chat for 10 minuntes, your personal number would accrue 10 minutes of cost.
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Aug 3, 2006
5349 posts
2456 upvotes
Related question...

If I port my home land line to VOIP, can I later port that VOIP number to a wireless provider? Yes, I'd prefer going directly from land line to wireless, but this isn't my decision.
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Mar 3, 2002
9417 posts
3328 upvotes
Bedpan wrote:
Unfortunately we need a home phone.
Anything other than an OBi200 or OBi202 for an ATA is not worth it, imo, for home use.
I suppose I will start looking for this answer myself, but thoughts on Freephoneline.ca vs voip.ms? Both offer E911 I believe. freephoneline has a higher setup fee I think but less monthly cost..
I've used FPL for over 4 years. No monthly fees. No taxes. After 1.25 years (possibly less), regardless of what you use, the savings is huge since you would still be paying fees with other services. But in order for FPL to be worth it, you should have low jitter/low pings to freephoneline sip servers (Milton, Ontario)

So you can run ping tests to voip.freephoneline.ca to see what your results are like.

With an OBi ATA and Google Voice (newegg-ca-obihai-obi200-voip-adapter-go ... st20781403), you can call anywhere to Canada and the U.S. for free
Any other options for that people might recommend for transfer of the cell phone. I don't want to give up text messages on this number. It looks like there is some support on voip.ms and freephoneline. Anyone have any experience with SMS on these?
Freephoneline doesn't support SMS. Fongo does (I doubt I'd pay to use Fongo though. I'd probably use Anveo or VoIP.ms instead). Both freephoneline and fongo are owned by Fibernetics (they own/run Freephonline, Fongo, Worldline.ca, 295.ca, 1011295.com, Vonix, Nucleus Information Service, etc.), a relatively big CLEC in Canada.

Anveo.com and VoIP.ms support SMS (I've never tried sending and receiving texts with either of these services though)
Deal Fanatic
User avatar
Mar 3, 2002
9417 posts
3328 upvotes
Mulder and Scully wrote: If I port my home land line to VOIP, can I later port that VOIP number to a wireless provider?
If you can port from the landline to the wireless provider, then yes

It's when the phone number has been provided, originally, by a voip provider that you may run into issues.
Deal Addict
Jun 21, 2008
1227 posts
695 upvotes
mississauga
you don't need to port to voip then wireless, we went from landline to mobilicity a couple of years ago
Mulder and Scully wrote: Related question...

If I port my home land line to VOIP, can I later port that VOIP number to a wireless provider? Yes, I'd prefer going directly from land line to wireless, but this isn't my decision.
Sr. Member
Jun 8, 2007
945 posts
286 upvotes
Oshawa
Ordered an Obi202.. Missed some decent sales the last couple of months.. Oh well, I did not know I needed one then ;-)

I think i will setup a voip.ms account.. And start toying with stuff until the hardware shows up. More questions then I am sure.

Any other suggestions as far as the cell phone port to voip and needing SMS forwarded either as an SMS or an email? Anyone play with SMS on any of the providers?

Mike
Sr. Member
Jun 8, 2007
945 posts
286 upvotes
Oshawa
Just thought I would update..
Still waiting on the Obi202.

Bought a DID through VOIP.MS.. Tested out SMS. Works great. No real setup involved. Click the checkbox and its setup. Just decide what you want done with them. Store local, forward to SMS, or Email. All options work great. Sending right now I only see the ability to use the web interface. Thats ok for me but would be interesting if there was a SIP type client that supports sending/receiving. Well there quite possibly is I just have not got that far yet.

Will update once I get the obi.

Mike

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