Wireless networking with a VoIP line

Well if you were using vonage you could use the wireless VoIP phone that acts as an adapter however yes you would need to bridge it to the network that has the internet connection. In this case the more devices you will be adding in might not be your best bet. Could you give us more information and we can work something out that would be best for what you have.

 

(Edited to verify network before suggesting methods)

Message Edited by Zapperlink on 08-14-200611:12 AM

Could you give us more information and we can work something out that would be best for what you have.

Well, the office has Earthlink DSL. 1.5Mb Download. 128kbs upload. A NETGEAR WGR614 four port wireless router is joining everyone together. Here is what is currently running off of this connection:

• 3 PCs hooked up to it via wired ethernet
• 1 desktop via wireless
• 2 laptops via wireless

After writing that and the list, I'm even wondering if the network can handle a VoIP line. The upload speed is poor compared to my home connection (768kbs), but there has been no real need for a lot of upload bandwidth in the office environment so hence the reason I have never been concerned about it. This might be a factor though.

 

 

 

Message Edited by northview on 08-14-200608:26 PM

While that speed is a concern you can do QoS on most VoIP devices. Your phone calls may not be using 100% of the potential quality a VoIP can use. Do you have a plan your planning for? I've personally used vonage for about 2 1/2 years  now and they have been great even with the multiple lines we have. If you want to consider their plans you can go to www.vonage.com and see if this is a reasonable price for you. If you do go with them they offer a wireless handset that will connect to your wireless router with no issues and works great for if your walking around the office as where your wifi is... your phone will work. Great thing about this too is say you go somewhere else. Your phone is a voip device as well so it can go anywhere there is a internet connection. Let me know what you think and we can discuss. This option I showed you is probably your cheapest and easiest method of implementation but there are always other options with ranges of investment on your network.

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@northview wrote:

Could you give us more information and we can work something out that would be best for what you have.

Well, the office has Earthlink DSL. 1.5Mb Download. 128kbs upload. A NETGEAR WGR614 four port wireless router is joining everyone together. Here is what is currently running off of this connection:

• 3 PCs hooked up to it via wired ethernet
• 1 desktop via wireless
• 2 laptops via wireless

After writing that and the list, I'm even wondering if the network can handle a VoIP line. The upload speed is poor compared to my home connection (768kbs), but there has been no real need for a lot of upload bandwidth in the office environment so hence the reason I have never been concerned about it. This might be a factor though.

Message Edited by northview on 08-14-200608:26 PM

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You definately want to consider a router that supports QoS functionality/features (not sure if the WGR614 does this)

You may also want to consider upgrading to a business-class DSL service that has better upstream speeds (potentially at the cost of reduced downstream speeds if cost is an issue)

An extreme forward-thinking approach could potentially include setting up an IP-PBX in the office such as an Asterisk-based server. (For more information I suggest www.voip-info.org, www.asterisk.org, www.digium.com, and possibly www.trixbox.org for starters).

Last but not least, stay far away from Vonage if you ever want any advanced functionality (such as IP-PBX capability).

For my own office experiance:

Even with a lot of upload bandwidth, one user uploading something would tank VOIP quality. Ended up getting a wrt54g router and putting dd-wrt 3rd party firmware on it. Many routers (including many linksys and buffalo routers) support this great firmware which comes with very decent QoS support and many other features.

QoS out of the way, I dealt with wiring. Our phone lines were wired with cat5 which was a plus because it can support around 4 different phone lines per cable. Even old phone wiring should at least have 4 wires (for two seperate lines). One of the pairs of our lines is for our primary voice. Another is for our primary fax. I used the third set and attached it to the vonage ATA. You could presumably do something similar. This way you don't need to deal with wireless and your whole office can hook up via the already wired phone ports.