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VOIP Telephone


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Hi,  has anyone any advice regarding Voip telephones.   I want to purchase a phone that I can use on Skype and also with a landline.   I have asked in some of the  Telephone shops but they do not stock them in my area.

Any information would be helpful.

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We have used Skype since the early days and found using it via a computer with headphones and a microphone very limiting.

What we really wanted was the freedom of our Siemens cordless phone system with the bonus of Skype - we experimented with a cordless DualPhone and then a USB adaptor that connected our Siemens phone to the PC - both of these proved to be unreliable with dropped calls and poor speech quality.

The introduction this year of wi-fi Skype phones which provided Skype without the need for a PC looked very promising and we purchased a Belkin phone from amazon.fr - this proved to be pretty badly made and the person being called suffered a bad echo of their speech on their landline handset.

Internet research ( should have done this before buying!) showed that this was a major problem with the Belkin phone and other badged makes such as Netgear. Worryingly these continue to be sold by Amazon and Skype.

Having done more research we purchased a Philips VOIP841 wi-fi phone from Skype. At around 150 Euros this has proved to be first-class. You get a base station with power supply which plugs into your ADSL router via a RJ45 cable and the phone with it’s own base station/charger and power supply which you can site wherever convenient. No need to have the computer connected or turned on.

Build quality is superb and installation with a Netgear router took only a few minutes. Performance is very good - for incoming calls it works as a normal landline or Skype phone - for outgoing calls simply enter the number and choose SkypeOut or Landline on the phone.

Call quality is good with no dropped calls.

You can also purchase additional handsets.

Regards,

BobC

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Bobc - thank you for that information - I had been thinking about the model you are talking about and, finances permitting, was considering getting one. I don't use the phone much - a lifetime working in telecomms does that to you - but thought my wife may prefer it to using a microphone - but when I suggested it, she refused. I must admit I was rather surprised but didn't argue with her - I know better than that[;-)]
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I purchased the phone from the Skype online shop.

Ordered on a Monday, despatched on Thursday from Germany via UPS and delivered the following Monday.

The only feature of the phone that I have not worked out yet is the landline voicemail - Skype voicemail works fine and shows an indicator on the display if there is a message. France Telecom voicemail messages are recorded and can be picked up by ringing 3103 but there is no indicator on the display that there is a message. A minor detail that I will sort out when I have some spare time.

I omitted to mention in my last post that Amazon offered a full refund for the poor quality Belkin wifi phone. One to be avoided!

Regards,

BobC

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