We have now reached crunch point in this neck of the woods and I have to go fttp or sogea by the end of December 2025.
I do want to keep my "landline" and earlier this year thought I would simply opt for sogea. But one of our satellite routers (we have Cat5e in almost all the rooms of the house but have the additional for WiFi) has lost its WiFi capability.
I was looking at the ASUS RT-AX57 because it has 4 1 Gbs Lan ports. If I get an ASUS it would need an adaptor (probably the Cisco ATA) and was wondering if anyone had experience in using one and what they thought.
The Tp-link EX820V has all the bells and whistles so maybe a better option if we can extend WiFi using the Cat5e (we have metal under our underflooring on each floor and it is great at blocking signal). Does the VOIP off the EX820V work well and would I be able to add "satellites"?
Advice Welcome
I can't advise (well, I could but it wouldn't do you any good), but welcome to the forum. I'm sure someone will be able to help soon. :)
Thank you Simon
If I recall from one of the threads, you were going down the ASUS/Adaptor route but chose to get a TP-Link instead.
What is the VOIP like?
I'm still clinging on to my copper landline by the fingertips, so I haven't used the TP Link for VoIP yet.
WiFi doesn't use wires. Wireless Fidelity.
Just use the word "network" instead. It can be wired or wireless.
For new structured cabling, you probably want to be use some cable with better spec than Cat5E nowadays, just to future proof against 2.5Gbps or faster connections. (Yes, 1.6Gbps FTTP is available now from many ISPs.)
Your SIP ATA will need some way of getting round your NAT and Firewall if it is not directly connected to the global internet. Your VoIP provider ought to provide a STUN server.
By "satellites" do you mean extra WiFi Access Points or do you mean telephone extensions?
Apologies Nowster – careless language.
We have a wired network – a Billion 8800 with 2 Netgear WNR as satellites to extend the WiFi coverage as well as ethernet for devices that can use it. All the ethernet cables lead back to the Billion which I consider our main router so never really thought of it as a network (I discovered "mesh" last week).
I suspect a decent wireless network might be difficult to achieve in this house.
I have tried to find the precise rating of our ethernet cabling but from a chat with the manufacturer it seems that it is not quite Cat6 standard if there is such a thing. We will stick with this for as long as we can. After all, we are upgrading from a 40/10 service which worked for us if not for our young guests. Going FTTP will be a big upgrade for us and a max of 1Gbps sufficient future proofing for the time being.
I was going to stick with SOGEA until I read another post (Stan, I think) with a strong suggestion that it is better to get the FTTP service up and running before trying the conversion to VOIP.
As I will be getting the UBOSS service I am assuming that IDNet will help with getting the serivce up and running. I do fuss about the quality of the call though.
We have a Gigaset 430 with base and 3 extensions, with another outlet for a corded phone in case of power failure - a hangover from years back.
I thought of the ASUS simply because getting a VOIP port on the router feels like putting all the eggs in the same basket. The reason for my question about the Cisco adaptor.
Cisco (formerly Sipura whom they acquired) ATAs have a good rep. There is a bit of tweaking needed for the UK market to get the impedance right to reduce echos and sidetone, and also to set the ringing cadence to UK type brrr-brrr, rather than US type (think Rockford Files intro). Also dial tone and various call progress tones.
I do prefer British to UK and hate echo so it looks as though there's some learning and work to do when I set it up. I presume the BT option for "no internet" users will have sorted this or I can see more people thinking they are demented and calling the NHS for help.
I will take the Cisco and see how I get on. Will post how it goes in case someone else is interested.
Thanks for help.
https://www.provu.co.uk/pdf/sipura/sipura_uk_regional_settings.pdf will be of help.