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kreil
join:2005-08-20
Austria
| reply to DracoFelis
Re: How to do an SPA-3000 setup like mine...
Amazing! 
Just imagine they would actually configure their devices to make this easy, there would probably be a TelCo revolt! 
Many thanks again for the heads up!
With best regards,
David. | |
DracoFelis
Premium
join:2003-06-15
| reply to kreil
said by kreil  :Regarding using the "line" of the SPA3000 - isn't this a POTS FXO port to go to the phone company? Yes.
The Sipura manual describes the "Line" port as what you hook up a real telco/POTS "phone line" to (if you wish to use the telco/POTS interconnect features of the device). And that is in fact a useful thing to do with the "Line" port. But it is not the only possible use of the "Line" port.
Here are some other uses clever people over on the Voxilla.com forums have also made of the "Line" port:
1) Since the "Line" port is expecting a telco "phone line", anything that mimics a real phone line will also work. So you can plug the "Phone" port of some other adapter, into the "Line" port of the SPA-3000. This works, because the "Phone" side of pretty much any VoIP adapter is pretending to be a "phone line" to the "phone" they expect you to plug into the device. Since the SPA-3000 "line" port is designed to work with a real "phone line", and the ATA you are plugging it into is pretending (to the "phone" it thinks it's hooked up to) to be a telco line, both adapters are "happy". This allows you to combine VoIP features of an SPA-3000, with features from another "locked" VoIP adapter (on the same "phone").
2) One especially clever user (no it was not me) over on Voxilla.com, figured out that it is actually OK to connect the SPA-3000's "Line jack" (that expects to be hooked up to a phone line, and mimics a phone) and "Phone jack" (that expects to be connected to a "phone", and mimics a "phone line") together. You might wonder why you would ever do such a "silly" thing. The reason is, that it allows you to call into your SPA-3000 via the PSTN side "VoIP provider", authenticate (PIN access) with the adapter, to let you call out via the "telco line". But in this case, since you have hooked the two jacks together (possibly via a telco "Y" cable, so you can also hook up a real "phone"), the "Phone" side of the SPA-3000 thinks that you have just picked up the phone in the house (as soon as the "Line" side of the SPA-3000 takes the "telco line" off hook)! The practical upshot of this, is that you can call into your SPA-3000 by VoIP, and then out again making that call "as if" you were making it directly from the SPA-3000. Round about way of doing things, but very clever IMHO.
3) And if you ever later setup an * server, you can redirect your SPA-3000 to the * box (instead of having the SPA-3000 do VoIP directly with the outside world). If you do this, you essentially get one FXS port (the "Phone" jack of the SPA-3000) and one FXO port (the "Line" jack of the SPA-3000) that can be remotely controlled by your * server. Again, I haven't done this myself yet (mostly because I haven't yet setup an * box). But it is nice to know that my investment in Sipura adapters will _NOT_ be "wasted" if/when I do go to *, as I can just recycle the adapters as FXS/FXO interfaces for *! | |
kreil
join:2005-08-20
Austria
| reply to DracoFelis
Dear DracoFelis,
Thanks for your fast and helpful reply! 
I almost forgot: With the SPA3000 I cannot really have two incoming VoIP accounts, right, not even with forwarding tricks because there is only Line 1, correct? 
So, combining the two SPA2100 phone lines with the extra gadget you mentioned seems like a great idea for receiving calls on one phone. It doesn't give me the choice of how to dial out though, for which I'd need an SPA3000, which again only has one incoming line - d'oh... 
Have you ever considered / heard of people using the SPA-1001 with the *SE firmware? It sort of sounds like what I need.
Regarding using the "line" of the SPA3000 - isn't this a POTS FXO port to go to the phone company? The phone lines going "out" to the phones are FXS ports, so I don't think they can be hooked up.
Alternatively, another setup using two of the devices you found to combine two phone lines might be (dots just to make stuff align)
Cablemodem
. |
SPA2100 --- Line 1 ----\_____ phone
. | \ ----- Line 2 ----/ .. /
. | ...................... /
USR8054 (or other router) /
. | | .................. /
. | PCs ............... /
. | .................. /
SPA3000 --- Line 1 -- /
with the devices combining the phone lines set to call out on the SPA3000. This would give 3 incoming VoIP accounts and 4+ outgoing ones but it seems a bit like overkill to me.
Also, you all seem to be using the SPAs behind standard routers. Does your router support QoS/diffserve? And if not, do you observe problems with voice calls when there is a data upload (not download) happening at the same time?
This worry was one of the main reasons I went for the SPA2100, which I could put in front of the router.
Looking forward to hearing from you,
David. | |
DracoFelis
Premium
join:2003-06-15
| reply to igi
said by kreil :From what you say, I probably need to swap my SPA2100 for an SPA3000. said by igi :I'm starting to think that I should go ahead and replace the 2000 for a 3000, that's what you did, right? Yes, I did get an SPA-3000 to replace my SPA-2000 (I'm now using the SPA-2000 mostly as a backup/test VoIP device). And for my needs, I find the SPA-3000 much more flexible than my older SPA-2000.
However, before you two rush off to spend money based upon my posts, please "look before you leap". Take a minute to think about what features you need, and decide if the SPA-3000 has all those features (or if you will still have to do "work arounds"). While the SPA-3000 is IMHO much more flexible then the other Sipura models, and may in fact be what you need in your situation, it still has it's limits. And it is quite possible to "bump your head" against the limits of the SPA-3000!
IMHO one of the more limiting restrictions of the SPA-3000, is that you really only have ONE VoIP slot that lets you "ring your phone" (i.e. the main VoIP provider on the "Line 1" tab of the SPA-3000). If you want to have two separate "inbound" VoIP accounts (that both "ring your phone"), you are going to be back to cute "forwarding games" to get the 2nd one to ring (even on an SPA-3000)! This is simply a limit of the SPA-3000, that those of us using it have to live with!
OTOH, if you have one account you want to "ring your phone", and one (or actually any number up to 4) other VoIP accounts that you use for "calling out" only, then the SPA-3000 is "the right tool for the job". Remember, the 4 "gateway" slots on the SPA-3000 (as useful as they are) are for "calling out" only! So it is reasonably easy to accept inbound calls via one provider, and do outbound calls via another (or even choose which provider to call out via, by how you dialed the call). But if you want multiple INBOUND (ring your phone) VoIP accounts, the SPA-3000 won't do the job by itself (because the SPA-3000 only has one slot for a VoIP provider that can "ring the phone").
NOTE: Here are some other "out of the box" ideas that you might want to consider, before making your final decision on what to get:
1) If you want a "hardware solution" for combining two "phone lines" (which could also be the two phone line outputs of an SPA-2000, or SPA-2100), the $25 device (SW18A) at the top of this merchant page, may do the trick for you. This device is designed to hook up a one line answering machine, up to two separate "phone lines", and automatically "answer" whichever one is currently "ringing" (and outbound calls always go via the line chosen by the device's switch). I don't see why you couldn't use such a device to allow a phone to "share" two "lines" of a VoIP adapter (for example, plugging this device into the 2-jacks of an SPA-2000, and then plugging your phone into this device), but I haven't tried it myself so YMMV:
»www.sandman.com/lineshar.html
2) If you do decide to buy an SPA-3000, and keep your existing adapter (instead of selling the old adapter on Ebay), you should be able to combine both adapters for greater features. Remember, the SPA-3000 has a "line" jack, designed for hooking up a real phone line. But I don't see any reason why the output of another Sipura adapter wouldn't look enough like a "phone line", to allow the SPA-3000 to use it. This should (in theory) let you put a inbound/outbound VoIP account on an older adapter, and have the SPA-3000 fully use that account, in addition to the 5 VoIP account (1 inbound/outbound + 4 outbound only) that you can program directly into the SPA-3000.
3) Don't overlook any "forwarding features" that a provider may offer (for example, on their web portal, if they have one). If you can tell an incoming VoIP provider to forward the call to the provider you have registered in your Sipura line, you should be able to "ring" the line with that provider (although you may have some latency or other issues doing it). | |
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