Voice Over IP in UK - Cheap Chinese (ATA's) on Ebay

Author

Cheap Chinese (ATA's) on Ebay - Any good for simple use?

Roger Baker

2007-02-14, 7:11 am

I have an account with voip.co.uk and subscribe to their £1.99 a month
service.

My mum is getting older now but has broadband as she tends to be a bit
of a 'silver surfer'. I seem to be making an increasing number of
calls to her these days and she likes to chat to her friends during
the week. The voip.co.uk option of 2p for up to one hour during peak
periods would seem to suit her and also allow me to phone her for
nothing.

I have been looking at the option of one of the cheap Chinese ATA's on
Ebay for her, and was wondering if anyone could give any experiences
of having used one. The two common models seem to be the Gate 101 and
Gate 102. She doesn't need any bells and whistles, just something to
plug in and work.

Anyone care to pass on any of their experiences with these devices?

Many thanks,

Roger.

Brian A

2007-02-14, 7:11 am

On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 07:13:01 +0000, Roger Baker <me7@privacy.net>
wrote:

>I have an account with voip.co.uk and subscribe to their £1.99 a month
>service.
>
>My mum is getting older now but has broadband as she tends to be a bit
>of a 'silver surfer'. I seem to be making an increasing number of
>calls to her these days and she likes to chat to her friends during
>the week. The voip.co.uk option of 2p for up to one hour during peak
>periods would seem to suit her and also allow me to phone her for
>nothing.
>
>I have been looking at the option of one of the cheap Chinese ATA's on
>Ebay for her, and was wondering if anyone could give any experiences
>of having used one. The two common models seem to be the Gate 101 and
>Gate 102. She doesn't need any bells and whistles, just something to
>plug in and work.
>
>Anyone care to pass on any of their experiences with these devices?
>
>Many thanks,
>
>Roger.
A factor you might consider....
I haven't seen these devices so can't comment but I would think that,
particularly with an older person, you would want to integrate the
landline, if she intends to keep it (no choice if on BT of course).
This a an additional safety factor should she become ill etc.
Some ATAs have simple fallback to a landline if the power faills,
others have full support for it.
Remove 'no_spam_' from email address.

cybuerke

2007-02-14, 7:11 am

"Brian A" <no_spam_bca1000@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:iop5t2lnbeqvc8okccadjain2o0b967hnk@
4ax.com...
> On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 07:13:01 +0000, Roger Baker <me7@privacy.net>
> wrote:
>
> A factor you might consider....
> I haven't seen these devices so can't comment but I would think that,
> particularly with an older person, you would want to integrate the
> landline, if she intends to keep it (no choice if on BT of course).
> This a an additional safety factor should she become ill etc.
> Some ATAs have simple fallback to a landline if the power faills,
> others have full support for it.

The Gateway 102 does have PSTN fallback. Likewise, I'm not able to comment
on the quality of these gadgets. I have noticed that the 'Buy it Now' price
of the 102 from ebay's 'digidave_ie' is now £33. Seems to be quite a price
hike.

Mike Sun

2007-02-14, 1:11 pm

"Roger Baker" <me7@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:80d5t2hrl92rg9q2a0viuh5pbj4fprkagp@
news.individual.de...
>I have an account with voip.co.uk and subscribe to their £1.99 a month
> service.
>
> My mum is getting older now but has broadband as she tends to be a bit
> of a 'silver surfer'. I seem to be making an increasing number of
> calls to her these days and she likes to chat to her friends during
> the week. The voip.co.uk option of 2p for up to one hour during peak
> periods would seem to suit her and also allow me to phone her for
> nothing.
>
> I have been looking at the option of one of the cheap Chinese ATA's on
> Ebay for her, and was wondering if anyone could give any experiences
> of having used one. The two common models seem to be the Gate 101 and
> Gate 102. She doesn't need any bells and whistles, just something to
> plug in and work.
>
> Anyone care to pass on any of their experiences with these devices?
>
> Many thanks,
>
> Roger.
>
Hi Roger,

I have precisely such an arrangement for my elderly mother using the Gate
102. This unit allows incoming calls via PSTN as normal and outgoing calls
via VOIP service provider. I configured the GATE 102 to dial 9 for the BT
line rather than *00 default value. So to dial e.g. emergency service it's
a case of 9 (wait for BT dial tone) 999 rather than 999.

I used www.voipcheap.com who provide good rates (virtually free) for UK
calls and a good rate for callling UK mobiles. Selected counties are also
"free".

The GATE 102 is better than the GATE 101 if you intend to keep the landline
(recommended). Expect to pay around £20 - better than the typical "buy it
now" price of £33 on eBay.

Two things to be aware of - no caller ID is sent for dialled out calls with
this arrangement; also there is no distinctions between busy, unavailable or
miss-dial for dialled out numbers via VOIP - you get the same "busy" tone.

In all, the setup seems reliable and safe if you keep the landline and the
cost savings are considerable. Let me know if you need more specific
configuration details but overall, it is very easy to configure.

Cheers from Mike

ale.cx

2007-02-14, 1:11 pm

On Feb 14, 1:28 pm, "Mike Sun" <sun12...@mailinator.com> wrote:

> Two things to be aware of - no caller ID is sent for dialled out calls with
> this arrangement; also there is no distinctions between busy, unavailable or
> miss-dial for dialled out numbers via VOIP - you get the same "busy" tone.

This may of course be down to Voipcheap and not the ATA.

alexd

me@hotmail.co.uk

2007-02-15, 7:11 am

Brian A

2007-02-15, 7:11 am

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 08:28:58 +0000, me@hotmail.co.uk wrote:

>On Wed, 14 Feb 2007 07:13:01 +0000, Roger Baker <me7@privacy.net>
>wrote:
>
>If she surfs a lot why not try Skype? Its free and works well
>Or ever thought about www.1899.co.uk ??
>
The advantage of having an ATA is that it can connect to your standard
house phones - no need to have a computer on AND, for an older person,
in particular, to have to dash to a computer, to answer a call, really
isn't the thing to do. Totally free calls can be had SIP to SIP. As
far as 1899 goes, well calls can be had at 2p/call on voip with 1899
it is 5p/call. So lots of advantages to buying an ATA.
Remove 'no_spam_' from email address.

Roderick Stewart

2007-02-16, 1:11 pm

On Thu, 15 Feb 2007 10:21:55 GMT, Brian A
<no_spam_bca1000@hotmail.com> wrote:

>The advantage of having an ATA is that it can connect to your standard
>house phones - no need to have a computer on AND, for an older person,
>in particular, to have to dash to a computer, to answer a call, really
>isn't the thing to do.

You can get a little adaptor box from Maplin or a computer fair for
about £20 that will enable you to use any standard phone with Skype.
Yes, you have to have the computer switched on, but it's cheap to try
it out and you're not restricted to a choice of a very few special
phones - any phone that will plug into a standard BT socket will do,
even the base station of a cordless phone, so you can have extensions
anywhere you like.

The adaptor is capable of switching the same phone automatically
between Skype and the BT line, but it is possible to configure it to
stay on one input, so it effectively becomes a simple USB to BT
converter, if you want to use a separate phone for Skype calls.

Rod.

Roger Baker

2007-02-16, 1:11 pm

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 13:24:10 +0000, Roderick Stewart
<escapetime@removethisbit.beeb.net> wrote:

>You can get a little adaptor box from Maplin or a computer fair for
>about £20 that will enable you to use any standard phone with Skype.

Whilst I am grateful for all the information given, I fear that this
thread has drifted away from the original question, which was opinions
on how good the cheap Chinese ATA's are.

I am not interested in Skype as I already have experience of 'true'
SIP by using my own self unlocked PAP2 ATA with voip.co.uk. The
question was quite specific.

Thank you to the people who have attempted to answer the original
point and to that end I have ordered one of the Gate 102 ATA's to see
how my mother gets on with it. From reading some info on the net,
there is a question of presentation of CLI from an incoming PSTN call.
I'll investigate this when it arrives and I get it set up. If it isn't
able to do this it isn't a big problem provided it is provided on
incoming VOIP calls. She can always dial 1471 for the odd missed PSTN
call.

If anyone is interested, I'll report back in due course.

Roger.

Roger Baker

2007-02-24, 7:11 am

On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:30:32 +0000, Roger Baker <me7@privacy.net>
wrote:

>If anyone is interested, I'll report back in due course.

Just to report back now that I have obtained one of the Chinese ATA's.
I got the Gate 102 from Digidave on Ebay. I bid on one that wasn't
listed as 'buy it now' and got it for £14 plus £8 postage.

This model allows you to connect your PSTN line and like a previous
poster I have configured it to make an outgoing call on PSTN by
pressing 9 first. Just entering the number normally sends the connect
out on VOIP.

I am very pleased. It seems reliable and was easy to set up. It
doesn't have some of the more technical settings available as does the
PAP2 range. The audio quality is as good as my PAP2 and the fall back
to PSTN works fine.

Unlike the previous poster, CLID is sent from and received by the unit
using voip.co.uk. However, like the previous poster CLI is not
received with an incoming PSTN call, presumably because the data and
the first ring are lost.

All in all though a good buy and well suited for the purpose it was
purchased for.

Roger.

Nildram news

2007-02-27, 1:11 pm

"Roger Baker" <me7@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:f9svt2tultj8itakdvpnlq4rf715kfo8p1@
news.individual.de...
> On Fri, 16 Feb 2007 17:30:32 +0000, Roger Baker <me7@privacy.net>
> wrote:
>
>
> Just to report back now that I have obtained one of the Chinese ATA's.
> I got the Gate 102 from Digidave on Ebay. I bid on one that wasn't
> listed as 'buy it now' and got it for £14 plus £8 postage.
>
> This model allows you to connect your PSTN line and like a previous
> poster I have configured it to make an outgoing call on PSTN by
> pressing 9 first. Just entering the number normally sends the connect
> out on VOIP.
>
> I am very pleased. It seems reliable and was easy to set up. It
> doesn't have some of the more technical settings available as does the
> PAP2 range. The audio quality is as good as my PAP2 and the fall back
> to PSTN works fine.
>
> Unlike the previous poster, CLID is sent from and received by the unit
> using voip.co.uk. However, like the previous poster CLI is not
> received with an incoming PSTN call, presumably because the data and
> the first ring are lost.
>
> All in all though a good buy and well suited for the purpose it was
> purchased for.
>
> Roger.

I have just received one but can't get it to work and I am wondering if it's
the different phones I have tried to connect to the unit which are causing
the problem. Except for the obvious such as SIP server address, user ID,
password, did you have to change any other settings ? I am using
voipcheap.com so I would think the settings should be very similar to yours
?

Bernard

Roger Baker

2007-02-27, 7:11 pm

On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:20:48 -0000, "Nildram news" <dot@dot.com>
wrote:

>I have just received one but can't get it to work and I am wondering if it's
>the different phones I have tried to connect to the unit which are causing
>the problem. Except for the obvious such as SIP server address, user ID,
>password, did you have to change any other settings ? I am using
>voipcheap.com so I would think the settings should be very similar to yours

The unit comes with an RJ11 phone cable. Only the two centre pins are
connected. This seems fine with DECT phones but there might be a
problem with older fixed phones.

To check if the phone can talk to the ATA, what happens if you enter *
(star) three times, as per the manual? Do you get the voice prompts?

If not, that needs fixing first.

Roger.

Nildram news

2007-02-28, 7:11 pm

"Roger Baker" <me7@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:4h89u250t7h8or7llur82nn8vq996k3m47@
news.individual.de...
> On Tue, 27 Feb 2007 18:20:48 -0000, "Nildram news" <dot@dot.com>
> wrote:
>
>
> The unit comes with an RJ11 phone cable. Only the two centre pins are
> connected. This seems fine with DECT phones but there might be a
> problem with older fixed phones.
>
> To check if the phone can talk to the ATA, what happens if you enter *
> (star) three times, as per the manual? Do you get the voice prompts?
>
> If not, that needs fixing first.
>
> Roger.
>
Thanks. Indeed, the unit is connected via the centre pins of the RJ11
sockets/plugs. A quick trip to Maplin for "blank" plugs, a bit of rewiring
and I'm almost in business... Almost as although the calls are now going
through voipcheap and the other party ears me loud and clear, at my end, the
line is very noisy but I suspect it's due to my broadband connection which
tonight checked at 379kbps up and... 131kbps down !!!