Broadband via 4G -- attaching a home phone?

[AF62]

If it is free phonecalls you want, then as a lateral solution buy a Google Home or Google Mini and connect it to the router by WiFi.

You can make free phonecalls on the Google Home / Mini just by asking it to call someone or speaking the number. It also allows you to 'spoof' the caller ID of your mobile so people know it is you calling. The only downside is it doesn't take incoming calls, but then you have a mobile phone for that.

[UncleEbenezer]

I too use sipgate as my VOIP provider.

All works well and costs just a few quid a year, but one thing to bear in mind is that they don't offer handholding support to configure it. So a technophobe might want to consider an alternative with a support line, or at least procure hardware for which they publish specific instructions.

[bailey56]

I've recently gone down this route, with a Huawei B618 and a Smarty SIM currently £18.75 per month for unlimited calls, text and data. Got rid of my landline rental and have attached existing landline phones to the router via a small RJ11 to POTS adapter - less than £2 from ebay. Works brilliantly! Call quality is excellent and has caller-ID (see what number is calling you).

bailey

[Laughton]

I finally got round to taking recommendations and signed up to sipgate for VOIP calls. Only wish I'd done it ages ago.
Installing and setting up the grandstream adaptor was "fairly" straightforwad
Signing up to sipgate was easy, transferring my BT telephone number to sipgate was easy.
I'm now getting into the habit of taking calls (to my original number) over the internet via sipgate. Quality is really good, much better than I used to have with BT. And now no monthly line rental.
And I make outgoing calls using my mobile phone using up some of those free calls that used to go to waste.

Only been using for a couple of weeks now but all seems good. One downside would be that you can't make or receive calls during a power failure.

[UncleEbenezer]

One downside would be that you can't make or receive calls during a power failure.

Of course you can! Unless you have power failures that go on longer than your mobile's battery life?

[Laughton]

Ah - actually I think you're right.

Obviously I can make outgoing calls using my mobile phone and yes, I think there's an app that I can load onto my mobile phone which will mean being able to receive the calls people make to my "landline" number via sipgate. I just haven't got round to working out how to do that yet.

What I want to do though is be sure that I can receive my "landline" sipgate calls on my mobile but when I make outgoing calls from my mobile they go via my SIM (so part of my free allowance) rather than via sipgate which I would pay for. Anyone know the answer to that one?

Sorry for misleading in my previous post.

[UncleEbenezer]

Ah - actually I think you're right.

Obviously I can make outgoing calls using my mobile phone and yes, I think there's an app that I can load onto my mobile phone which will mean being able to receive the calls people make to my "landline" number via sipgate. I just haven't got round to working out how to do that yet.

What I want to do though is be sure that I can receive my "landline" sipgate calls on my mobile but when I make outgoing calls from my mobile they go via my SIM (so part of my free allowance) rather than via sipgate which I would pay for. Anyone know the answer to that one?

Sorry for misleading in my previous post.

I use an app called CSipSimple. It's one of several that give you VOIP on an android phone. As it happens, this very morning I've taken two incoming calls on my 'home' number, despite being away from home.

Outgoing calls are handled by the phone itself. Whenever I make an outgoing call, it presents me with three options as to what service I'm calling from. One of those is my regular mobile number, using whatever allowance and rates my contract with O2 specifies. Another is my "home" number from sipgate, using my service from them and either my O2 Data service or wifi. Occasionally one or more of those may be unavailable, if there's not an adequate signal.

[SonOfCloud]

This thread deserves a bump.

Despite all the great suggestions in the past few years, OP - and now myself - is still having to physically remove the SIM from his 4G router and pop it into his smartphone in order to access his minutes/call allowance. There must be a better way to do this (without turning his smartphone into a tethering mobile hotspot).

[SonOfCloud]

I use an app called CSipSimple. It's one of several that give you VOIP on an android phone. As it happens, this very morning I've taken two incoming calls on my 'home' number, despite being away from home.

Outgoing calls are handled by the phone itself. Whenever I make an outgoing call, it presents me with three options as to what service I'm calling from. One of those is my regular mobile number, using whatever allowance and rates my contract with O2 specifies. Another is my "home" number from sipgate, using my service from them and either my O2 Data service or wifi. Occasionally one or more of those may be unavailable, if there's not an adequate signal.

CSipSimple has been abandoned since October 2017 and is no longer available in Play Store.

[UncleEbenezer]

I use an app called CSipSimple. It's one of several that give you VOIP on an android phone. As it happens, this very morning I've taken two incoming calls on my 'home' number, despite being away from home.

CSipSimple has been abandoned since October 2017 and is no longer available in Play Store.

Indeed. So I switched last year to another such app, Zoiper. The advantage of using an open protocol like SIP is that you're not locked in and at the mercy of a single vendor, as with a nightmare like skype or whatsapp.

[servodude]

This thread deserves a bump.

Despite all the great suggestions in the past few years, OP - and now myself - is still having to physically remove the SIM from his 4G router and pop it into his smartphone in order to access his minutes/call allowance. There must be a better way to do this (without turning his smartphone into a tethering mobile hotspot).

I think that it is impossible
- It would need the router to be able to make a "voice call" (then be able to relay that to an external handset) this would be quite an unusual thing for it to do

Interestingly the idea of "minutes" on a 4G network is weird as they've done away with circuit switching and all information is packet data so in principle there's now less difference at the network level than there was
- but routers are not built with the necessary hardware to convert audio in to data to use it
- and historically they would have needed a different back end for the call

- sd

[Stonge]

One of these would do it:

Huawei-B315S22 4G-Router

It's the 'standard' 4g router, that you can plug a phone handset in to directly (RJ11 plug, but you can easily get an adapter from the BT type plug normally found on a POTS handset). POTS = Plain Old Telephone System.

I've had one for a while and it's 8/10. Not the best router ever (I'm a Draytek fan), but pretty reliable and enough features for the more adventurous user.

Registered here just to tell you this, but apparently I'm 'not approved to post links', so can't link you to a retailer that explains it. Google "huawei b315s-22", first link should be the manufacturer, second link a retailer that explains how it works in layman terms.

Works for me, as above. I don't use it for data but of course it can be, via WiFi.

[servodude]

One of these would do it:

Huawei-B315S22 4G-Router

It's the 'standard' 4g router, that you can plug a phone handset in to directly (RJ11 plug, but you can easily get an adapter from the BT type plug normally found on a POTS handset). POTS = Plain Old Telephone System.

I've had one for a while and it's 8/10. Not the best router ever (I'm a Draytek fan), but pretty reliable and enough features for the more adventurous user.

Registered here just to tell you this, but apparently I'm 'not approved to post links', so can't link you to a retailer that explains it. Google "huawei b315s-22", first link should be the manufacturer, second link a retailer that explains how it works in layman terms.

Works for me, as above. I don't use it for data but of course it can be, via WiFi.

what an interesting bit of kit
- does look to have the audio front end relay to GSM

Compatibility with RJ11 telephone ports; can be set to Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or Circuit Switch (CS) voice mode NOT compatible with 3G CDMA/EVDO networks including Verizon and Sprint.

might need to get one for a play about with

- sd

[onthemove]

Mobile phone reception where I live is rubbish. I get good 4G reception to my router courtesy of an external antenna very high up on my roof within line of sight of the EE mast a few miles away. Receiving calls to my mobile phone isn't practical as I don't know when I need to be outside (and ideally up a step ladder) to receive a call.

If you can get signal on the roof, and don't mind installing an antenna up there, you can get mobile phone signal boosters that can relay the mobile phone signal into areas it might not normally reach. Then you'd be able to just use your regular mobile as normal.

I haven't tried one, but I did have a quick look a while ago as a possibility for my mum who can get a signal down the road- and I was guessing likely on the roof - but nothing indoors. In the end though, my mum wasn't interested enough in a mobile phone, so couldn't be convinced it was worth it. So I don't know how well they would have worked.

A quick google suggests that to be legal, the booster is only permitted to boost one network at once. I don't know if the boosters let you switch between the networks, or whether you'd have to buy a replacement booster specific for the network if you wanted to switch network.

[Bminusrob]

I have only just seen this post, but I was in a very similar position when we moved to Devon last November. The Openreach broadband (that is, the wired broadband BT, Sky etc use) can provide 1Mb/s at best, usually les than half that, according to our neighbours, so we took a different route. I looked up SIM based unlimited broadband options, and found a choice of Vodafone Gigastream, or Three. Vodafone could provide about 16Mb/s for £50 a month, while Three could provide about 8Mb/s for £22 a month. We opted for Three, and have been very happy with its performance, which seems to have improved to about 14Mb/s. (Interestingly, upload is at least as fast as download.)

Having done this, I started to look at landline options. BT's price is silly, and other conventional providers are no better, because they all want to sell you landline+broadband packages. I found a very good solution in Sipgate. SIP (Session Initialtion Protocol) is a standard which allows you to use telephone service over networks. Sipgate provide you with a localised landline number, and various options for paying for telephone services. We use PAYG but very rarely use outgoing calls anyway. You then need one or more handsets/telephones. I found a useful box made by Cisco, an SPA 122. I connect one side of this with an Ethernet cable to my router, and connect the other side to my standard DECT phone (or phones on my case). Sipgate also list various alternatives to the SPA 122, but I haven't tried them. The other really useful thing is an Android app called Zoiper, which allows me to connect to my SIP landline using my mobile phone. This means that I can pick up landline calls while away from home.

The whole scheme works superbly, and I found Sipgate extremely helpful.