Confused about beneifits of VOIP and equipment

Guest

I've been researching this for about a week and made calls to several equipment providors - d-link, linksys, et. al. I've heard nothing good about Linksys call quality and some "white noise issue" - but even more importantly - its the whole wireless thing.

My only reason for going to Voip would be to take advantage of my home wireless network. But it seems every equipment providor I talk to indicates you need equipment hard wired. Not only that - but the converter has to be first in line behind the cable / dsl box.

I don't know about you guys - but in my house my cable DSL comes intoo the upstairs bedroom (3rd floor) and the wireless router is next to it. I have range extenders on the second floor and the basement - as that is where my home office is located.

So basically - if I get this right - I'd have to run a 10/100 cable from the upstairs bedroom down to the basement to the converter - then back up to the bedroom for the wireless box. Then I'd have to route phone cables through the walls to the kitchen (1 phone), office (1 phone), and upstairs bedroom (third phone) - or somehow tie into the box on the outside of the house which is already wired to these three area's.

I'm not seeing the beneift of any of this... Am I wong on this account? What I would really want is a simple phone that goes into my wireless network - preferbably eliminating the need for a converter box altogether. Or - at the very least - base stations that communicate wirelessly to a conerter box which would have to accept signals across the repeaters....

Is anything like this available - on its way?

Posts: 9 · New Forum Member Joined: Mar 02, 2005 Posts: 9

talldoggy,

My setup is similar, in that my cable modem is located in the upstairs gameroom and our study is downstairs.

I am using the following:
Comcast Cable
Motorola SB5120 Modem
Linksys WRT54GP2 adapter
Linksys WAP54G (Range Extender)
AT&T 5840 Cordless Base Station (5.8gb)
Three AT&T 5840 cordless remotes
Gateway Desktop with Linksys PCI "G" adapter
Dell Desktop with Linksys PCI "G" adapter
Dell Latitude laptop with Linksys PCMCIA Linksys G adapter
HP 5850 Wireless "B" printer
HP 4125 Fax machine

I installed the WRT54GP2 adapter right behind the cable modem and then connected the AT&T Cordless base station and the HP 4125 fax machine to the WRT54GP2 adapter. The three cordless phone remotes are spread throughout the house. The study does not have a house phone jack installed, hence the fax upstairs. I want to try the following to see if I can get the fax downstairs somewhere. I am going to disconnect the house phone wiring from the outside SBC network wiring. That will isolate the house phone wiring. Then I will connect the Phone Jack 2 on the WRT54GP2 adapter to the closest house phone jack. (Hopefully the adapter output will drive the house wiring). Then I will move the fax machine downstairs where there is a house phone jack and try it. If that works, then I will extend the house phone wiring into the study and move the fax there.

As is now however, the system works well as installed.

Hopefully this gives you some food for thought.