News:

On Tuesday September 6th the forum will be down for maintenance from 9:30 PM to 11:59 PM PDT

Main Menu

Need two lines. Should I get a 202 or two 100's?

Started by NewUserFromBA, October 02, 2013, 11:31:04 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

NewUserFromBA

What are the pros and cons of getting a 202 vs. getting two 100s? Cost difference is only about $10 and I'm not too concerned about that. But in terms of reliablity and voice quality, do you think getting two 100 units would be better than one 202? I've read in Amazon reviews that some 202 owners had issues that did not exist for the 100. Does the 202 work reliably when two lines are busy at the same time, e.g. no crosstalk? What's the power usage like for 100 and 202? I could not that info in the data sheets. Thanks for any help!

Shale

OBi100 and OBi202 both come with a power supply rated at 12v 1 amp out, but that only puts an upper bound on the power.

From a reliability point of view, 2 units are unlikely to fail at the same time. On the other hand, an OBi202 is going to make it easier to share a 911 provider.

There are some functional difference that may not matter to you:

PHONE 1/2 Collaborative Features (OBi202 and OBi302 Only)
While PHONE 1 and PHONE 2 can function independently of each other, the OBi202 and OBi302 also offer some
collaborative features to let the two phone ports work together as a mini phone system.
With the factory default digit map and call routing rules, you can dial a single "#" (pound/hash) digit to call from one phone
port to ring the other phone port. Depending on the current state of the called phone, one of the following can happen:
1. If the called phone is idle (on-hook), it will ring normally with a special Caller-ID that indicates the call is from the
other PHONE Port.
2. If the called phone is already on a call, the calling phone will barge in to join the call.
3. If the called phone is on-hook with a call on-hold, the calling phone will pick up and resume that call.
4. If the called phone is ringing, the calling phone will pick up and aswer that call.
5. For all other scenarios, the calling phone will hear busy tone.
Note that you can prevent the calling phone port from doing 2, 3 and 4, as they can be disabled by setting the parameter
EnablePhonePortBargeIn to false for that port. In that case, 2 will become normal call-waiting on the called phone, but the
calling phone will hear busy tone for 3 and 4.
You can also transfer an external call from PHONE 1 to PHONE 2 the usual way: while connected on an external all, hook
flash and dial # to ring the other phone, then hang up to transfer when the caller phone rings or answers.
For incoming calls on any trunk (SP1-4 or OBiTALK Service), one can set up the corresponding inbound call route to ring just
PHONE 1 or PHONE 2 or both. The default inbound call routes are setup to ring both phone ports.
For outgoing calls, each phone port has its own digit map and outbound call route configuration, which means that you
have the full flexibility in allocating trunks for making calls from each port independently. Each port may also have a
different primary line assigned; the default however is to set the prmary line to SP1 for both phone ports.


Search the admin guide for more.


CoalMinerRetired

I'll jump in here to summarize my experiences with using two active phone lines (former landlines ported from the local telco) on one Obi202 vs. two Obi202s.

In my case months and months of calls dropping out and mystery reboots were solved by moving to two Obis from one.  I have no reason to believe this has been addressed this in any recent firmware release and for these two reasons I'd recommend using two devices.

An FYI on what I wad doing: On one Obi202, I had two GV numbers, and two Call Centric forwarding numbers (for e911 and CNAM), so instead of using two of the four I was using four of the four available service provider slots in one Obi202.  I noe have two Obi202s each with one GV and one Call Centric. Call stability is all it could be and no mystery reboots.

Shale

Maybe 2 OBi200s would be worth considering, since it has the faster processor of the OBi202.