Different Voip adapters and opinions. Customers or Tim comments appreciated

[christcorp]

I've been with VoipO since the beginning. Alpha and Beta testing. Now that VoipO is quite established, I don't do much techno-geek playing as much. VoipO is about the most stable voip service I've used. And I've used quite a lot over the last 10 years.

Question: When VoipO finalized and became available to customers, we settled on the Linksys PAP2T adapter. That is what I'm currently using. However; I notice now, looking on the forum, that the main used adapter now seems to be the Grandstream HT-702. During my Alpha/Beta testing days with VoipO, we used the Grandstream for quite a while.

1. Was it the SAME HT-702 being used now, or WAS the Grandstream of the beta days the HT-502? I have it in a box some place, but I am too lazy to look for it.

2. For those quite knowledgeable with the adapters, do you think the HT-702 is any better than the PAP-2T that was issued to me 4 years ago?

Opinions are appreciated. Thanks. mike....

P.S. Not really interested in a reply of: "If what you have works, stick with it". I am not having any problems. Just curious about people's experience with the HT-702. Especially those who were using the Linksys PAP2T.

[VOIPoTim]

The HT502 is the old model we were using in the early days. I'm sure you remember that we did have some issues with it when it first came out, but once GS worked through them, it's been solid since and

The HT702 is a relatively new device which is the "next generation" of GS devices (HT70X series - 1, 2, and 4 line models).

The biggest difference in the two is that the HT502 has a built in router. The HT70X series devices don't have the router. Other than that, they're pretty similar.

The HT70X series is a lot cheaper due to the router not being in them and I think they're a little "cleaner" functionality wise. The HT502 back in the day was pretty much an entirely new area for Grandstream and I feel like the HT70X series incorporates a lot of the things they learned with the HT502. There are a lot of subtle changes that make me think that..just more polished.

This year, we've only been buying HT70X devices. In some rare situations, we may send out HT502s if we think the customer needs it in front of their router. This used to be our main recommendation, but more and more nearly all non-cable ISPs are now providing modems/router combos so the portion of our customer base that can even benefit from "putting it in front" is cut back. The cable companies still pretty much provide basic modems but we've found that our cable users typically are more advanced and are more concerned about throughput and prefer to use their own routers so it turns into a debate with them.

With that in mind, the fact that it's the new series which is getting the most development support, and the pretty drastic price difference, we're pretty happy with our choice of using the HT70X series and only using HT50X when we determine there is a need for it. The lack of a router is a con in some ways, but again a lot of people can't due to a combo unit, a lot won't put it in front anyway, support is lower due to it only having 1 ethernet port (hard to confuse the install), etc.

We're happy with the GS devices and recommend the HT70X series.

Linksys has some new devices out now that are supposed to be PAP2 replacements, but since Cisco bought them, they've shifted further and further away from the "consumer grade" stuff and their devices are not priced at a point where it makes sense for budget residential service. They've made it pretty clear that they only want to go enterprise and I wouldn't be surprised if they eventually phased out the consumer ATAs. Grandstream is putting a lot of effort into working with service providers and prices their devices much more competitively. Just from our experience, the overall build quality of Linksys vs Grandstream is pretty similar since we see about the same failure/problem rate with both brands in terms of equipment we have out.

Another brand to possibly consider for BYOD users would be the Obi devices. The guys behind Obi are the ones from Sipura before Linksys acquired it back in the day so they have a solid background and to a degree pioneered consumer ATAs. I don't think their devices are suited well for residential deployment on a mass scale, but for BYOD users they provide a lot of unique functionality, the build quality is excellent.


So overall....my ATA opinions...

Everyday User/Plug and Play: Grandstream HT70X Series

Power User/BYOD User/Tinkerer: Obihai

Hope that helps!

[christcorp]

Excellent answer tim. Honestly; the ONLY reason I was even considering swapping out the ATA, was because of one feature that the 502 had on it that was cool. Believe it or not, I could actually use rotary phones on the 502. I have a 1910 country junction phone and a 1957 pay phone. They actually worked on the 502. Currently; I can "Receive" calls but can't dial out with rotary. Anyway; I was interested in possibly going with the 702 if it could do rotary. But my current PAP2T is voipo provided. I don't really want to get back into BYOD. I'd rather let VoipO control the perameters. Thanks... Mike....

[jfh]

Interesting - I have a 50's payphone I have been meaning to hook up and I just ran another phone outlet during a remodel. I just assumed all ATAs would support pulse dialing and i could just backfeed an ATA into the internal house wiring.

Another entry on my project list.

[christcorp]

Interesting - I have a 50's payphone I have been meaning to hook up and I just ran another phone outlet during a remodel. I just assumed all ATAs would support pulse dialing and i could just backfeed an ATA into the internal house wiring.

Another entry on my project list.

Actually; it's the contrary. ATA's normally do not support pulse dialing. Only tone. I have all of my jacks in the house connected to my voip adapter. (11 of them, with 11 phones). This is something that isn't hard to do, but if you don't know what you're doing can be a PITA. Plus; if you don't disconnect properly at the phone company's NI on your house, you could fry your ATA/IP phone if you're not careful. Also; you need to be careful not to leave ALL of the ringers turned on if you're connecting a lot of phones to the ATA. Especially if you have older phones with real bells. They draw a lot of current to ring. Most adapters can handle about 3-REN. But with more modern electronic ringers, that don't draw much current, you can usually get more ringers online. But for my 2 real old phones with ringers, you would have to be careful.

[MarkTomlinson]

A quick Google search turned up a bunch of these, http://www.voip-info.org/wiki/view/D...TMF+Converters

They don't seem to address the voltage issue, though. Perhaps a pay phone will have it's own low voltage line.

[jfh]

I know how to connect an ATA to house wiring; just haven't done it. Since my wife and daughter refuse to use anything but their cell phones and I use IP phones, the only reason I would hook up an ATA now is to drive the payphone.

[christcorp]

pay phones are no different than any other phone. They DON'T have their own low voltage line. They get their voltage from the phone line just like all other phones. The difference with the older phones, are they had REAL RINGERS. Not the chirping pizo type ringers of today's phones. As such, they like old desk phones with real bells, draw a lot of current. So if you want to hook up an ATA to your jacks, you just need to make sure you don't have too many bells turned on. Or else it will ring-trip. Which means, it will do a half of a ring and basically lock up the call. I have 10 phones connected to my ATA through the house. I have the bells working on the 1910 Country Junction phone; one phone down stairs; and one in the bedroom. Between these three phones ringing, you can hear the phone ringing anywhere in the house. I simply turn the ringer off of the other phones.