Switching to VoIP with the OBi100
Jul 15, 2012We’ve had telephone service through the local cable company for the past four years in a digital tv-phone-internet package. The “digital voice” service from Time Warner is voice-over-DOCIS but otherwise unexceptional and runs on the same cable network as the TV and internet services. We’ve seen our monthly price of the package climbing up and annual offers to new customers for the same package sliding down and received very little satisfaction from customer service. The whole bundle costs too much for the value we get. Cutting cable is a topic for the future, but I think I can do better for our very modest home phone usage.
I bought an Obihai OBi100 VoIP
device. A colleague raved about how great his was and I found it selling
new for less than $50 with tax and shipping. The first thing that
struck me was how tiny it is, pictured here with a pack of gum and a pen
for comparison:
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The device is about the size of a deck of playing cards, but a bit
thicker. The second thing to know is that once it picks up an IP address
with DHCP, the web-based interface offers both a “wizard” guided setup
and a do-it-yourself mode where you input the configuration. I spent an
hour reading the PDF documentation and forums on the
vendor site, fiddling with Google two-step
authentication, setting QoS on my router, and flashing the device with
the most recent firmware before setting it up. The “wizard” is, at least
for me, easier and I had the device working perfectly inbound and
outbound as line #2 on my desk phone with Google
Voice in five minutes.
My next step is to select a SIP provider and configure it as a second service.