Does OBI 200 support tranditional phone?

[cheerful]

Hi,

New to VOIP and OBI.  Hope to get some advice here.

- traditional phones at home
- router is far from any phone jack

Ideally, I'd want a device with LINE port and USB.  I am bit confused reading the product spec.

Does OBI 2xx (which support WiFi) support traditional phone?  If so, can I connect the phone line to a traditional wall jack so that the rest of phone jacks in the house can work?

Thanks

[SteveInWA]

Please stop posting the same (or similar) question across the forum.

Your posts are actually unclear. 

Do you currently have telephone service that you want to keep using, from a traditional telephone company, or cable company, that is currently wired into your house wiring?  That's the only reason you would need a LINE port on an OBi -- to combine both the external service and the VoIP service provided by the OBi's service provider.

If you don't have some existing telephone service, then all you need to do is plug the OBi 200's PHONE jack into a cord, and plug that cord into any of your wall jacks, after first confirming that your external telephone service has been electrically disconnected from the house wiring.

This has nothing to do with WiFi.  The OBi will use it's WiFi connection to connect to an internet telephone service provider that you would set up on the OBi.

Internet-->OBiWiFi-->OBi-->Telephone jack

[cheerful]

I will delete the others.

I want to abandon the current telco service and switch to VOIP.

I need WiFi because the wall jack is too far from the router.

Thanks for the answers.

[SteveInWA]

In that case, all you need to do, is what was previously described:

• Get an OBi 200 and an OBiWiFi dongle.
• Set up the internet telephone service provider (ITSP) of your choice on the OBi; either Google Voice, or one of the SIP VoIP ITSPs.
• Disconnect your current telephone service from the house wiring, at the demarcation box (the box with the wires coming into your house/apartment from the telephone company).
• Plug a phone cord into the PHONE jack on the OBi, and into the nearest PHONE jack in the wall.

All your hardwired phones will now use the OBi's service.  Of course, you could instead plug a cordless phone base station into the OBi instead of the house wiring, and then use cordless handsets around the house.  Your choice.  Keep in mind that call quality using an OBi over WiFi is dependent on a strong, reliable WiFi signal.  If the OBi is too far away from your WiFi router, then you may have calling issues.  If possible, locate the OBi as close as possible to the WiFi source, and use either a cordless phone base station, or a long telephone cord to reach the house wiring.

[dircom]

Like Steve says, Hard wired to the obi is best.  If you do end up using cordless phones, plug your obi into the router with an ethernet cable.
If you don't have cordless phones, you are going to be happier in the long run, to place the obi next to the router, and find a way to run a phone line from your obi to the nearest phone jack
[and of course if you intend to reuse your home telephone wiring, make sure it is disconnect from your old outside line at the demarc]

[TonyTib]

Steve's reply is on the money, except I would add this:

Consider trying powerline communications (which go through your house's wiring) available from TP-Link, Netgear, etc instead of using WiFi.  Depending on your house's wiring these can be pretty crappy, too, but it's worth considering.

So far I've found the WiFi included with modems to be very crappy.  So my current arrangement is DSL modem with WiFi upstairs, linked via powerline to Obi 202 and second WiFi router downstairs.  I have two cordless phones plugged into the Obi 202.

[airberryblue]

Just a quick point on the wireless use.  I run three obi devices (2 Obi200s and 1 obi202).  Due to limited space around my router I wanted to use a different section of the house for my phone/fax placement.  I tested a obiwifi usb chip and felt I wasted my money, but what work out to be a better option was an EnGenius ETA1305 which is a N300 wireless media bridge/access point. Through the 3 obi units, I run 1 standard phone system and a 2 line phone system, and a fax machine, all are hardwired into the EnGenius unit.  My calls are clear, with no problems, the fax machine sends and receives with no problems.  Where I agree hardwired from your obi device is best, I would consider a N300 wireless access point over a obiwifi chip.  The 2 obi200 units are both set up with Australian SIP numbers, so even from the other side of the planet the calls sound like the person is in the next room.  in our case we use both cordless phone systems plugged into the obi units and plugged into the house wiring with 4 line phones in different parts of the house.  Hopefully you will be able to solve your distance problem.

[cheerful]

Thanks, everyone.  Will try to get a long wire instead.