petitefrancaise

This is a follow -on from the thread regarding sip phone calls. My lovely friend Tim wrote out a guide which I thought was really good, with links. He and his wife both work from home and work all over the US and the EU and they have been using this system for the last 3 years since they moved to the USA.

This is what he wrote.

Suggestions for improved low $$ Communications:

OBIhai VOIP Adapter or SIP desk phone

We use the Obi202 Adapters and use regular house Cordless phones and multiple handsets around the house. You can buy fancier phone with two line features, but easier for us to use two different style Cordless phones to separate the lines and save SS

For an home office set up, try the Obihai Desktop phones:
Obi Bluetooth adapter to allow for cordless headset if you buy the 1022 or 1032 model, built in on the 1062 model desktop phone
http://WWW. Obihai.com/partner/obi 1000 looks like the OB 1062 (S160) has the Bluetooth adapter built it to use with a BT headset and can connect via Wi-Fito your home network, this is built in on the 1062 version, adapters are needed for the other versions
Google Voice for USA Free Phone Line, (Set up a new Google email address to use just for the phone line) Set up google to call the house phone for verification for an initial call in order to use on a Obihai device, then later pay to move the number to your google voice number and get rid of the house line but use the existing house number,
DIDLogic.com
Buy 2 numbers for work and Family to call, pick the city, I pick numbers that have a low monthly and set up phone with 1 channel, more expensive numbers usually have more channels for simultaneous inbound and outbound calls, I don't KnOW about you but I can only talk on one line at a time....
Pricing is variable, no "free minutes" for outbound calls, some free inbound calls which is what you want. Or free if forwarded to a sip device (your OBihai1062)
With DiD Logic you pay a fee to forward the inbound call to a real phone or in most cases it is free to call a SIP Phone account which is what you create to receive calls on the Obihai devices.
DiD Logic also allows you to forward to a SKYPE account without the need of buying a Skypeln number. Another useful feature if you want to make and receive calls via Skype interface
For example...
F's Dutch line rings the house Dutch line and also on her cellphone, if she answers on the sip phone, the inbound calls are free, if she answers on the cellphone it cost us S0.07/minutes for the forwarding fee plus uses cell minutes.
Remember that these are all business expenses that you can write off on your taxes, depending on the category, some are one year, some are multiple year Write offs.

bewildering

Dunno about all that. I have the Google App on my iphone. It costs 1 cent per minute to call the UK for all landlines and most mobiles.

It is 1 cent to call Holland landlines and 3 cents to call Holland mobiles.

https://www.google.com/voice/rates#N

petitefrancaise

what about people calling you from outside the USA?

Google gave me a US number.

mrken30

Ultra mobile has a UK number that people can use to call you. It is included in their standard package, $19 a month for unlimited US and UK calls and text

https://info.ultramobile.com/call_me_free/#!

mrken30

The cheaper obihai 200 adapter only has one line, if you want 2 lines buy the 202 model. There is also a wifi adapter available, but I recommend plugging direct into your router.

I only have the 200 model which makes switching providers awkward. You are required to setup a default and then type in a code if you want to use the other provider.

What do you use for voicemail as the obihai does not have built in voicemail. Does DIDLogic provide a voicemail service? Also will it do simultaneous ring or just call forwarding? Will the call divert after so many rings?

leepne

Purchase a United States phone call package on skype.


I did it a few years ago, I downloaded Skype on my Iphone, purchased $5 of Credit and then called US numbers on the Skype app like I was calling from a cell.

petitefrancaise

So here is where Tim's plan works.

Currently I am paying TWC $29 a month for a home phone line. I can get rid of this. The only calls I seem to get on this are spam ones anyway.
I am also paying t-mobile $15 a month for international calls. I can get rid of this.
I have paid skype $53 for a UK number for a year and I can't even have a custom voicemail for it..... this is for a client so it will do for now.

With Tim's plan I can buy a few DIDlogic numbers and the OBI hardware and stop paying for all these ridiculous plans. I also plan on switching to TING mobile to save even more - this is a tmobile mnvo and will work where I live.

mrken30

I got rid of my comcast phone and my bill went up :9

tom169

If I get rid of TWC phone my bill will go up.

I currently have the phone modem thing under the desk not plugged in.

bewildering

It is free IF you select "Display my Google Voice number for all incoming calls" under Caller ID in Settings. When it comes for logging the call your phone company thinks a US number is calling

petitefrancaise

Free for whom?

mrken30

I have found a slight old list of UK voip providers.

https://www.ukvoipforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=6

I have used sipgate in the past, but it closed in 2014.

This forum post has a couple of other suggestions
Sipgate Voip UK Basic - RIP - MoneySavingExpert.com Forums

To be honest I am not sure how valuable having a UK number is nowadays. It costs so little to call the UK from the UK, a lot of plans it is free.

Pulaski

Seems like a lot of "buying stuff" and buying/registering numbers.

I use OneSuite and pay about 1.8c/min IIRC, plus occasional 10% bonus promos they run. My mother uses PlanetTalk, which costs about the same. It costs me about $20 a year to speak to my mother, most weeks, sometimes more than once. She calls me about half the time. Coversations may be 5 minutes, or they may be 50, but usually they are somewhere in between. I can call from anywhere - home, cell, office, friend's house, so can my mother.

Honestly if I could save 50% on my transatlantic phone calls by buying some sort of gizmo and/or registering another number, ..... I probably wouldn't bother because I am only paying $20/yr anyway.

tom169

I've just set up a new Localphone incoming number of the same area code I had in the UK. I loaded the account with $20 and set it to forward all of the calls to my cell phone.

My elderly grandma was getting a bit concerned of being disconnected (the rest of the family has a Whatsapp group going), so hopefully this cheers her up.

mrken30

There was a time when it was difficult to get some businesses to call overseas numbers. Today it is not so much of a problem, but does very occasionally still happen, especially with smaller businesses.