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| Thread ID: 139756 | 2015-06-22 06:23:00 | Land line life. | Cicero (40) | PC World Chat |
| Post ID | Timestamp | Content | User | ||
| 1403376 | 2015-06-24 23:12:00 | We had a landline, only the in-laws rang. Her mum, her brother, and her Gran. Glad we were only paying a couple of bucks for a VoIP line and not $45 for a "real" landline, but even that's superfluous these days. Will you please explain VoIP for me. It seems, from what you say, that you have what amounts to a landline service but it's not landline, and you are only paying $2 instead of $45. Is that correct? Are you still able to make national and international calls? Your help is appreciated. +Thanks. |
Roscoe (6288) | ||
| 1403377 | 2015-06-24 23:54:00 | You could google VOIP, lot's of detailed explanations out there. Basically it's Voice Over Internet Protocol and uses the internet to carry phone calls. This means your internet connection has to be working and you router needs power for you to make a phone call but depending on the particular service it can otherwise act pretty much the same as a conventional landline. There are many versions of VOIP, services like skype making PC to PC calls are VOIP as are the services some ISPs offer where a normal phone can be connected directly to a port on a router which converts it to IP for you. Many companies also use a form of VOIP for calls from their PABX systems |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1403378 | 2015-06-25 01:47:00 | Quoted from that article - "Each exchange has a huge 50V power supply, backed up by batteries and often a diesel generator, so as to ensure that service could still be provided when the mains was out . " The reason for the batteries are not to ensure service when the mains were out - that is just a side benefit of having batteries . The mains supply is not constant and a constant supply of power is necessary for a telephone exchange . The main reason for the batteries is that although speech can be impressed on AC current, it is very noisy with a 50kHz hum . DC power - from the batteries - does not have that problem, so they use DC current for speech . Many of the more important exchanges, such as the Airedale St exchange in central Auckland, have generators to charge the batteries when the power goes down, but most exchanges do not . If the power goes off for a lengthy period they have mobile generators they can move in . "Each exchange has a huge 50V power supply . . . " The "huge 50v power supply" is provided by the batteries . I'm not quite certain why they call it "huge" as it is just banks of batteries (very much like car batteries) supplying the exchange - not all that huge . The battery room would have the floor area of about two sitting rooms . You may be wondering how I know all that . I worked for Telecom for 21 years . I suspect that they call them huge compared to your car battery . Many years ago when I worked in the local Auckland exchanges Mt Eden 2 batteries were so large that you had to walk along a platform just to read them Airedale street were quite small by comparison as they were based on high capacity battery tech from submarines . |
paulw (1826) | ||
| 1403379 | 2015-06-25 02:48:00 | Will you please explain VoIP for me. It seems, from what you say, that you have what amounts to a landline service but it's not landline, and you are only paying $2 instead of $45. Is that correct? Are you still able to make national and international calls? Your help is appreciated. +Thanks. Yup, basically it's a landline. I live in West Auckland so my phone number is 09 83X YYYY, just like a normal phone. It's still free for a normal home landline to ring me as-per usual. Difference is instead of coming over the actual *copper*, it's sent as a digital signal across my internet connection. And yeah, it's $5 for me, with 2talk.co.nz I have a small device I paid $30 for back in the day which converts a normal phone (I have a cordless phone) into a "VoIP" device. I put my username (phone number) and password in to this device, and it "just works". The device is plugged in to my router, and the cordless phone is plugged in to there. You can get something similar, like from TradeMe, the Cisco SPA122: www.trademe.co.nz It's like a once-off $20 "porting fee" to transfer your number from your current Telco across to 2talk, but from there-on out it'll be like $5 a month instead of $45 (Keeping in mind calls are additional, but they have 'plans'). Otherwise they'll just give you a brand new number instead. NOTE: I do this stuff for a living (VoIP Engineer / Consultant ~6 years now), I've simplified it a little bit, but happy to help out where needed :) It's actually pretty straight-forward really, but is a bit daunting if you've never done it before. Good / reliable router is key. VDSL2 / UFB is ideal. |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 1403380 | 2015-06-25 05:05:00 | A cellphone might not be a suitable landline replacement for an elderly person: "...press 2 now" Elderly person takes cellphone from ear, brings up keypad, presses 2, waits 2 seconds then realises not to expect a "beep", puts phone to ear, hears nothing, re-positions phone: "...try again another time." (Thanks Billy. I'll get onto them) |
BBCmicro (15761) | ||
| 1403381 | 2015-06-25 08:23:00 | Our VOIP phone is bundled with our Snap broadband, costs us nothing extra at all, we are now living back in the nelson area but still have the Christchurch number we were given when we moved down there. Can't do that with a landline. We are still using the same phone we had before VOIP its just plugged directly into the router. This same router is now doing ADSL here and before was used on a fibre connection. | gary67 (56) | ||
| 1403382 | 2015-06-25 20:37:00 | You can do that with a landline actually, either temporarily through forwarding or permanently in the exchange. Spark may charge you for the privilege but they can do it. The main advantage of VOIP is price it doesn't have much to recommend it other than that. A regular landline is easier, more reliable, less complicated hardware wise, and tends to still work in a power cut. Still I don't have one because none of that is convincing to me. |
dugimodo (138) | ||
| 1403383 | 2015-06-25 23:40:00 | Instead, you have to *pay* so others can ring you free. We had a landline, only the in-laws rang. Her mum, her brother, and her Gran. Glad we were only paying a couple of bucks for a VoIP line and not $45 for a "real" landline, but even that's superfluous these days. Kind of similar land line use to me - mainly ocassional chit chatting - inbound calls- from older family members. But no saving of $45 on Sparks unlimited ASDL, only about 10 if going naked (99 to 89 it seems, as alluded by 1101 earler). They seem to only offer naked Broadband on unlimited. Other ISP's seem to be dearer (compared to unlimited) on naked plans with less - and unsuitable MB's. Wondering then if it's worth - economically - to change to VOIP. I'm bit keen to try it (as a techie thing)- rather than standard landline which we don't really do outbound calls. Come to think of it don't really use my mobile (on plan) for outbound calls either. So pondering if I should change to VOIP - any quick suggestions/tips CS? |
kahawai chaser (3545) | ||
| 1403384 | 2015-06-25 23:48:00 | So pondering if I should change to VOIP - any quick suggestions/tips CS? Yep, get yourself a "free" account with 2talk and have a play around. Why not? No obligations, no changing your current number. Or pay $5 for an area-local number with 2talk on your "Free" account for a month, you can cancel that area-local number at any time and nobody cares. Means you can have a real good play with it. Just keep in mind that the "028" free numbers that they provide are effectively "cellphone" billed numbers, so any calls out from them must be done using the area-code (Such as 09 for Auckland), and any inbound calls from somebody elses landline will be charged to them at the same rate as a call to a Cellphone. The 2talk area-local numbers though are standard landline calling rates *to* you (Free for residential callers mostly) and outbound calls from 2talk are some of the best (if not THE best) in the country. Set yourself up a softphone and have a play, or set it up on your router if your router has the applicable ATA port. You need 3 things generally: Username (With 2talk its your Phone #) Password (2talk generate you one randomly) SIP Server: sip.2talk.co.nz That's it, that's all you generally need to throw into a Softphone or into a VoIP adapter or router, to make it work. |
Chilling_Silence (9) | ||
| 1403385 | 2015-06-25 23:51:00 | OK. Will do so. Thanks for quick reply! Actually why is Skype not mentioned in this thread for VOIP?. I thought they were the VOIP |
kahawai chaser (3545) | ||
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