Question regarding capabilities for Obi200 vs 202

[voip84321321]

I am looking at buying one of these devices and connecting it to a freepbx (or asterisk) server and using a few voip phones at my house. I also have a printer with fax capabilities that would be nice to use as well, if possible.  My questions are:

1. I have read that the Obi200 can only support one "call" at a time, meaning that if you use it to fax, it can't make/recieve calls at the same time, whereas the Obi202 has two "calls" so it can. Is this correct? It's hard to find information exactly related to this topic and configuration.

2. Does it matter which device I buy? My configuration plan is as follows: the internet port on the obihai will plug into my switch. Via this connection, it will be able to communicate with my LAN, the PBX, and the internet. The telephone jack on the obihai will connect to the printer for faxing.  Is this correct? Would this setup work or would I need additional jacks? I notice the Obihai202 has an internet port and a LAN port, do I have to have that one or will the single "internet" port work just fine for my LAN and internet simultaneously?

3. This question is less important: If I had for example 3 VoIP phones on my home LAN, connected to a PBX server that is then connected to the obihai for google voice access, would I be able to make 2 calls at the same time? Or unlimited?

The too long didn't read summation of this is:
If I plug the obi200 internet port into my LAN switch, point my PBX server to it, and connect my printer fax line to the rj11 port of the obi, can I make and receive calls and fax at the same time? If not, could I do that with the 202?

Thanks very much.

[drgeoff]

1.  An OBi200 has a single FXS interface so can only have one analogue phone (or one set of analogue phones in traditional extension mode) connected.

An OBi202 has two FXS interfaces so up to two phones (or sets as above) connected and taking part in independent calls.  Note that there is much flexibility as to which phone can answer or call out on each of the configured VoIP services.  It is not the case that one phone jack is hardwired to use one service and the other phone port is hardwired to a different service.

OBis can do 3 party conference calls.  Two parties external to the OBi and one party on the phone plugged in to the OBi.  (Obviously this requires Voice Service(s) to support 2 calls in/out of the OBi.)

2.  An OBi202 contains router functionality which when enabled sits between the two ethernet ports.  However its throughput is only about 30 Mbit/s.  Most people do not use the LAN port but just connect the INTERNET port to a LAN port on their existing router.

The 202 can be put into Bridge mode to operate as a 3 port ethernet switch - the two external ports and an internal one for the VoIP stuff.

3.  Depends onhow many GV numbers you have.  My understanding is that a GV number can have two simultaneous calls.

BTW using analogue fax machines over VoIP circuits can be problematic.  Some people find it works adequately, others do not.