Switching to VOIP and have a few questions.

Question

I have multiple phones no where near my modem. How will I be able to connect my other phones to the VOIP box?

I have an alarm system. How can I keep it connected to the phone line? Keeping a backup lane land based line is not an option. It plugs directly into my home phone network.

Need any help!!

Answer 1

Your biggest problem will be your alarm (and anything else with a modem, such as faxes, medical equipment, and of course real modems).

As far as hooking your house to your voip, if your using an ATA device, just plug it in anywhere in the house, and the rest of the jacks will be active, assuming they are all on the same line now, WARNING: be sure you disconnect your house at the demarc (the grey box on the side of your house) from the telephone company.  If its still hooked to their equipment it could send voltages up the line that would destroy your ATA device.  All you have to do is unplug the test jack, you don't have to take anything else loose.

As far as any modems, there are two things you can do to make sure these are successful:

First make sure your voip is using the u-law (also called g.711 or g711u).  In cases like vonage where its not clear, choose the highest bandwidth option, thats u-law.

Second run the device at a slow speed.  Depending on quality of your ISP, you can sometimes get devices to work up to 9600bps.

A lot of alarms only have 1200bps modems, so this isn't much of a problem and should work without much more effort.  If the alarm has a 9600bps or faster modem, then ask the alarm company to slow it down to 1200bps (they can do this in the alarm programming very easily, or if you have the programming manual for your alarm you can do this).  If the alarm company gives you problems, just get a different person on the line.

No modem will work at any speed if your not running u-law.

As far as running QOS, it won't hurt anything, but it probably won't help either as most ISP's ignore it and its probably not set on the downstream side (from your voip provider) anyway.

Answer 2

For a person who calls himself a "computer geek" you really lack basic network knowledge.

First, if you plan to use a service that uses the internet for transport, you will have an unpredictable voice quality.  It is not due to internet speed, internet carrier, or the phone service, it is due to uncontrolled data packet priority over the Internet and NO ONE can help you there.

Having said that, if you wish to plunge ahead anyway, you will need a managed switch, a router that processes voice packets with priority, and IP phones.  If your phone carrier has a box that converts IP phone to analog phone signal, you will need to run lines from the phone box to the phone sets.

I caution you that if you plan to retire your conventional land line you are likely to be disappointed with the quality.