Looking for a VoIP device to extend a landline over Ethernet

[SammyJr]

I'm thinking about buying some new construction that is using CAT 5 for the phone lines and repurposing the CAT 5 as Ethernet. This presents a problem for putting a landline phone in a decent location. I don't want to stick a wireless phone base station in the unfinished basement.

I'm looking for the following:
A device that will bridge 1 landline phone line over Ethernet to VoIP phones. Obviously, the device would sit in the basement where the landline comes in and the phones would be connected to Ethernet/Wireless.

Any ideas on how to accomplish this?

 

[seepy83]

Unless you specifically want to use VoIP and NOT regular telephone -

If you have a location in your house that has a CAT-5 cable, and you would like a telephone there, but do NOT need to have a LAN device at the same location, you can just use the pairs inside of the CAT-5 cable to carry the telephone signal.

 

[SammyJr]

I'd prefer VoIP, because most devices on my network are Gigabit and I need all four pairs.

 

[Crusty]

Originally posted by: seepy83
Unless you specifically want to use VoIP and NOT regular telephone -

If you have a location in your house that has a CAT-5 cable, and you would like a telephone there, but do NOT need to have a LAN device at the same location, you can just use the pairs inside of the CAT-5 cable to carry the telephone signal.

That's a bad idea.

 

[seepy83]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: seepy83
Unless you specifically want to use VoIP and NOT regular telephone -

If you have a location in your house that has a CAT-5 cable, and you would like a telephone there, but do NOT need to have a LAN device at the same location, you can just use the pairs inside of the CAT-5 cable to carry the telephone signal.

That's a bad idea.

Care to explain? I've seen this done many times. A Pair inside of CAT-5 is pretty much the same as a Pair inside of CAT-3, CAT-6, etc....it's all copper, and it will all carry your phone signal.

 

[xSauronx]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: seepy83
Unless you specifically want to use VoIP and NOT regular telephone -

If you have a location in your house that has a CAT-5 cable, and you would like a telephone there, but do NOT need to have a LAN device at the same location, you can just use the pairs inside of the CAT-5 cable to carry the telephone signal.

That's a bad idea.

 

[drebo]

Originally posted by: Crusty

Originally posted by: seepy83
Unless you specifically want to use VoIP and NOT regular telephone -

If you have a location in your house that has a CAT-5 cable, and you would like a telephone there, but do NOT need to have a LAN device at the same location, you can just use the pairs inside of the CAT-5 cable to carry the telephone signal.

That's a bad idea.

You just don't want to do them at the same time.

It's perfectly acceptable to use CAT5 cable to carry both analog and digital voice, as well as Ethernet. Twisted pair is twisted pair. You generally just don't want to do two at the same time, however.

 

[kevnich2]

CAT5 is much better than CAT3, it has more twists and is rated for ethernet so it can definately carry POTS voice lines. I wouldn't combine and use ethernet and POTS on the same cable though (I have seen this done with mixed results). You can, however, use a CAT5 cable and carry multiple phone lines over 1 cable and I haven't seen any issues when this has been done. In installations I've seen, they usually ran 3 CAT5 (2 for data jacks and the spare CAT5 was usually put on 2 voice lines with 2 pairs leftover just in case). Of course, now there's CAT6.

 

[nightowl]

Ok, so you have copper running throughout the house and you want to place a wireless phone base station somewhere within the house? Correct? If that is the case, just patch your landline into one of your copper drops (kitchen, living room, bedroom, where ever) and then use the remaining connections for Ethernet. This is assuming that all of the copper is "home-run" to one location back in the basement. If the jacks were run in series, then you are going to be SOL to run Ethernet.

Now, you did mention wanting to convert your analog phone connection "landline" to IP phones. What is the thinking behind wanting to do this? I am not aware of any consumer grade VOIP call control. Also, all of the IP phones that I have seen are in the order of hundreds of dollars for a single phone. So, this plan would not be cheap either.

 

[SammyJr]

Linksys has IP phones that are less than $100.

There are obviously cheaper and easier ways of doing this sort of thing, but a VoIP setup has more geek cred. Also, it opens up the future possibility of using VoIP for outgoing long distance.

 

[jaqie]

what you want is an asterisk server (not client) set up, combined with an FXS to FXO adapter, and standard VOIP hardware at the home phone end... though to be honest, personally I think itd be much much cheaper to just buy a vonage account (that comes with a vportal for $10) and pay $31 a month after all taxes and fees for unlimited us calling.

There is also a very much less expensive option, and that is buying one of those cordless phone systems where you have one base unit, several handsets, and several charging stations.

 

[drebo]

Originally posted by: jaqie
what you want is an asterisk server (not client) set up, combined with an FXS to FXO adapter, and standard VOIP hardware at the home phone end...

All he'd need is an FXO card. FXS is to the phone. FXO is to the phone company. If he wants to use an IP phone in his basement, there's no reason he'll need an FXS port.

This is NOT the solution I'd recommend, thought it's really the cheapest (Asterisk is free) way to take analog phone service and turn it into VOIP.

 

[jaqie]

He wants to use multiple VoIP phones, that makes things more then a bit more complicated.

 

[SammyJr]

Originally posted by: jaqie
what you want is an asterisk server (not client) set up, combined with an FXS to FXO adapter, and standard VOIP hardware at the home phone end... though to be honest, personally I think itd be much much cheaper to just buy a vonage account (that comes with a vportal for $10) and pay $31 a month after all taxes and fees for unlimited us calling.

I kind of figured that I'd be going down the Asterisk route.

Are there any single port FXO devices that connect via Ethernet? I could then run Asterisk in a VM...

 

[jaqie]

I have no idea the workability of it for this purpouse, but this shows a few linksys router/FXO VoIP devices... perhaps, perhaps it would be hackable to do what you wish... but if you must go with this I would just say you should get a single port PCI adapter and run it in an old (say P2 or P3) box in the basement if you are dead set on doing this still.

 

[drebo]

Originally posted by: SammyJr
I kind of figured that I'd be going down the Asterisk route.

Are there any single port FXO devices that connect via Ethernet? I could then run Asterisk in a VM...

Asterisk with hardware doesn't really work well in a VM, and Asterisk IS the FXO-to-Ethernet device.

What you'll need is an old computer (one active call should be able to run on virtually anything) and an FXO card. I'd recommend the Sangoma A200 cards. The Digium TDM cards are generally a bit less expensive, but the Sangoma cards are of better quality. I sell Asterisk systems for a living, and I only use Sangoma cards.

As far as an Asterisk distribution goes, I'd recommend AsteriskNOW on the free side of things and EvolutionPBX on the pay side of things. AsteriskNOW is the most polished of the free distros, and also the most up-to-date (you know Trixbox was using Asterisk 1.2 until just a few months ago? and Fonality was using Asterisk 1.0!). EvolutionPBX is the best pay version of Asterisk I've ever seen, and is my distro of choice. Its featureset is superior to any other version of Asterisk out there.

For phones, I'd recommend picking up some Polycom 501s or using Linksys PAP2Ts to bridge to an analog phone. The Linksys IP phones are pretty crappy.

 

[drebo]

Originally posted by: jaqie
I have no idea the workability of it for this purpouse, but this shows a few linksys router/FXO VoIP devices... perhaps, perhaps it would be hackable to do what you wish... but if you must go with this I would just say you should get a single port PCI adapter and run it in an old (say P2 or P3) box in the basement if you are dead set on doing this still.

Those SPA devices are for use with Linksys' proprietary SIP PBX, the SPA9000. They don't really work like you'd expect.

 

[SammyJr]

Originally posted by: drebo
Those SPA devices are for use with Linksys' proprietary SIP PBX, the SPA9000. They don't really work like you'd expect.

They don't work with Asterisk?

 

[jaqie]

Originally posted by: drebo
Those SPA devices are for use with Linksys' proprietary SIP PBX, the SPA9000. They don't really work like you'd expect.

No, That's about what expected (that they were proprietary) but if this guy is really as into hacking around as it seems, I thought it may be possible, I didn't dig deep at all, just did a google and thought basically what you said.

 

[jaqie]

Originally posted by: SammyJr
They don't work with Asterisk?

it's either/or, not both. That *WOULD* be the "asterisk server" instead of an old PC with an FXO adapter in it... but as drebo says, they are proprietary, just like most other big brand stuff out there (like my vonage V-portal, hey, don't knock it, it just bleeding works(tm) which is what I like.) Technically these are FXS adapters (hook a phone to them, they talk to a VoIP provider off-site)

 

[nightowl]

Originally posted by: SammyJr
Linksys has IP phones that are less than $100.

There are obviously cheaper and easier ways of doing this sort of thing, but a VoIP setup has more geek cred. Also, it opens up the future possibility of using VoIP for outgoing long distance.

I have never looked at Linksys phones as I only deal with high end stuff.

Also, you can just use a VOIP gateway from Vonage or any other VOIP provider and use analog phones inside your home.

As for the Asterisk server, if you do not have an FXO card you can look at external gateways to go from IP to TDM. However, I have no idea which ones out there will work with SIP. I have only worked with SIP coming in from the provider to local call control.

 

[drebo]

He's looking to go from an analog trunk to a VOIP phone, from what I understand.

The SPA Linksys device that was linked earlier DOES provide this functionality, however, that device was made to be run off of an SPA9000 system, which is a proprietary system. I do not believe that it will function as an FXO-to-SIP gateway, however.

Linksys does make a SIP-to-FXS gateway that DOES work very well. It's called the Linksys PAP2T, and I've had very good experiences with it in the past.

Far as I know, the only way to do what he needs would be to set up some kind of basic PBX.