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Landline phone for free?

Started by PennyCat, October 22, 2017, 09:10:44 AM

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PennyCat

I currently have an Obi and am using it with Anveo.  While it's certainly cheap, I would like to pay nothing at all.  Does anyone know of any technologies that allow you to keep your landline phone forever, and allow you to use your phone jacks in your house?

I use T-Mobile for my cell coverage, and was thinking that they or another provider might have a solution for this as long as you subscrbe to a cell plan.  I also figured you guys would be in the know about this.

GPz1100

You could use your obi with google voice. That's about as free as it gets until google decides to charge for calls.  Use the obitalk portal to configure your gv account to the obi device.

You will need to establish a gv number first.

You'll need to disconnect your pots provider's line from your home in some manner. Usually there's a NID (network interface device) box outside where the phone company's wiring and yours converge.  Most boxes have a customer side that you can open.  See this : https://citynet.net/page.cfm?mypage=HowtobackfeedtheDigitalPhoneService

In our case we have a NID B type box and just had to disconnect the rj11 connector which severed the connection between the house wiring and phone company's.  Plugged a cord between the obi and any available wall jack to provide service to all jacks in the house.

If you plan to use more than 5 jacks, give this a read - https://www.obitalk.com/forum/index.php?topic=5390.0 .

PennyCat

I currently use Anveo with my Obi100, which is currently plugged into my NID.  Shouldn't I be able to transfer my number from Anveo to google voice?

drgeoff

Quote from: PennyCat on October 22, 2017, 10:22:30 AM
Shouldn't I be able to transfer my number from Anveo to google voice?
Yes but not directly.  Didn't you follow the link on the front page of obihai.com?

http://www.obihai.com/porttutorial

PennyCat

Sorry didn't see that.

So let me see if I understand this correctly, I can take an unlocked iPhone I own, get a SIM from TMobile and then port number to that phone?  After that I can port it to GV and use my current Obi to place and receive calls on my RJ45 devices?

Are there any limitations about GV that I should be aware of, other than them possibly stopping the service?

ETA: What about 911?  How do I get/pay for that?

GPz1100

Before investing any money I would do the following;

It's free to establish a gv number, so go ahead and create one.  You'll need to provide your cell # (or any other active number) for verification.

Once established, you can configure an unused sp slot to use it. This way you can fully test to see if gv service is to your liking.  We did this for about 3 weeks before moving our att pots line over to gv.

Keep in mind the following caveats.

1) Google voice does not support e911 (you can forward to a free callcentric DID and pay $1.50 a month for e911).
1a) You can use anveo's e911 service which costs more ($25/yr?) but can be configured through obitalk

2) Google voice only provides the number portion for caller id
2a) Callcentric's free DID's provide cnam caller id.  Establish a free callcentric DID, then add it to your gv account as a forwarding number.  This works well with their e911 service.

Costs: Google charges $20 to port in a number.  In addition to the sim card fee, most providers will require you to apply some sort of refill  to the prepaid before porting a number in.  This was the case with att prepaid.  Tmobile might be different and/or rules have changed now.

Yes it's a convoluted process, but the end result gets your number into the GV system.


GPz1100

#6
Just to clarify, in our configuration we end up with 2 different providers in our obibox.

1) Google voice - only for outbound calls.
2) Callcentric's free DID - only for inbound calls (name caller id), and e911 services

#2 required some manual configuration of obiexpert settings.  Specifically so that 9xx outbound numbers were routed to callcentric's service, not google voice.  

Monthly fee to callcentric is $1.95 (North America basic plan - e911 and 120 monthly minutes, just in case google voice should have an outage at some point).

drgeoff

Quote from: PennyCat on October 22, 2017, 10:42:11 AMAfter that I can port it to GV and use my current Obi to place and receive calls on my RJ45 devices?
OBi Analogue Telephone Adaptors are intended for use with devices having a RJ11 plug or socket.  If you have a phone with a RJ45 connection it is amost certainly an IP phone and an ATA (OBi or other make) is not required.

http://www.differencebetween.net/technology/difference-between-rj45-and-rj11/

PennyCat


drgeoff

#9
Quote from: PennyCat on October 22, 2017, 11:15:05 AM
My bad.  I meant RJ11
Right. Don't confuse 'knuckle' with 'cheese and pickle' the next time you ask for a sandwich.  :)