Newb questions on basic setup

[Porschefan]

Hi,

My current VOIP contract with PhonePower is coming up for renewal and I thought I might give the Obihai/Google Voice a try.

I ordered the Obi202 from Amazon and tried to hook it up the same way that my PhonePower device works, but apparently the Obi device is different.

The PhonePower device sits BETWEEN my cable modem and my router.   Apparently it passes through the internet info to the router.  The Obi is a no-go and I'm guessing, from the instructions, that this device needs to be plugged DIRECTLY into my router.   I haven't tried it yet, because, as these things always go it gets complicated by the fact that all my router ports are in use and I don't have a switch handy.    So before I order a switch and try out this configuration, I thought I'd check here to make sure this is the problem and I'm not missing something simpler.

I'm also wondering whether I should even bother.   Google Voice sounds cool with lots of options,  but I probably won't use many of them.    My PhonePower is set up to ring my cell phone when my main number gets called and that's about all I need.   PhonePower doesn't handle faxing well at all, even though there is supposedly a second "phantom" line.   Bottom line is that PhonePower costs less than $10/month and another provider, "VOIPO" has a prepaid 2-year plan for ~ $8.50/month and no-charge for their device.   I don't know how long Google is going to offer Voice for free and the Obi cost $75 + $10 for a switch....   

Still, I'd like to play around the GV and I have a couple weeks to return the Obi to Amazon if I want, so my preference would be to get a switch and give Obi a try--if that's what I need!

TIA for any pointers to a real noob....

STP--New Mexico

[Felix]

Hi Porschefan and welcome to the forums.
First, there is no need to stress (several times) that you are newb. The questions either make sense or not - and correlation with being newb is quite tenuous. If you feel more comfortable emphasizing that you are newb, there is a forum that's called "New to Using the OBi / VoIP". Just post there.

Now that you feel more comfortable, let me try to answer your questions (which actually do make sense).

You can put OBi202 between cable modem and the router. If you don't do anything else, it will be just like your current device (I assume it's Grandstream). OBi address will be something like 192.168.1.100 and the router's LAN will be on 192.168.2.0 segment (or whatever you have now).

PhonePower and Voipo have way more options than GV (other than voicemail translation). By the way, I tried PP on my fax machine and I was successful (I don't use it anyway, but not for this reason).

Finally, both PP and Voipo give you SIP credentials; so you can use GV and PP - and 2 more providers on your OBi device. You need to set up a dial map to send different calls to different paths - but it's not that difficult.