Recently, Aidan Whitehouse popped out over the fence
around uk.telecom.voip and said...
|Thanks for the info Ivor. V. useful.
|
|>> Is Caller Display passed through from PSTN port OK (not
|>> sure which flavour Vonage use but I guess if BT flavour
|>> is passed through then Bellcore flavours will also make
|>> it through).
|>
|> That one I can't answer, the PSTN line here doesn't have caller ID.
|
|Anyone else use the Fritzbox? I suspect at least BT cli isn't passed
|through but it would be useful to know if Bellcore variants make it through
|OK.
|
|
|
Hi Aidan,

I'm a very happy user of a Fritz!Box Fon WLAN (not the 7050) since a
year or so. A very cracking gear, can't see any fault.
Fully recommended. Now, some answers to your questions!

Caller Display: Yes, IS passed through the PSTN port or - better said -
the PSTN line is physically connected to the phone port(s) you choose
the PSTN line must ring as soon as a call is in. If your phone was
displaying the CLI before, it will.

Call routing: you can choose to use the PSTN or any of the max 10 VoIP
accounts you register based on a "prefix" list.
Say you have the best rate for mobiles with the VoIP provider "A", and
free landline calls with the "B", you can instruct the Fritz!Box to use
the account "A" to call numbers starting with 077, 078, 079, and the
"B" for calls to numbers starting with 01 and 02.
A full flexible dial plan, with just one limit: it's not based on the
time/weekday, so you can't choose which account to use based ALSO on the
fact that you have free calls on weekends, or evenings to this or that
destination.
There is no limit to the dialplan, you can drill down to the single
phone number definition.

Other stuff: optional automatic PSTN fallback. Say your broadband,
internal network or preferred VoIP provider for that call is down, the
box automatically uses the PSTN as a backup.

The 10-account limit (!) is the same on all Fritz!Box Fon, all
bidirectional.

Yes, you can disable the internal ADSL modem and use it as a pure
router. In this case, I recommend the 7050, for its two ethernet ports:
in this configuration, one becomes the "red" side and one the "green"
side (WAN and LAN)

While you don't need the WLAN bit just now, it's just a few quid more,
why bother?

Beware of buying devices from overseas - especially Germany - the ADSL
Annex is different from here. We have ADSL on PSTN (Annex A), Germans
use ADSL on ISDN (Annex B). It's a different hardware in the Fritz!Box,
and you have to put up with a german-speaking interface. 8-(

I'm sure Ivor won't bother too much if I remind you that one of the
official AVM resellers in the UK is Sipgate.

Any other questions, happy to help!

Cheers

--
ßødincµs²°°° - The Y2K Druid