Landline phone with own router on FTTP

[bruce_miranda]

Just got FTTP and everything is working fine off the VF router. Phone lines are plugged into the VF router, VF router's WiFi is switched off. 3rd party Mesh has been switched to Bridge mode and plugged into the VF's ethernet port.

However I am shocked at how feature poor the VF router is. e.g. There are no Parental controls at all. I know I can get rid of the VF router and plug my own Mesh router into the Openreach ONT, but what about the Landline. 

Are there any 3rd party routers in the market that have a telephone socket at the back to allow the home phone to be plugged in? 

[prs1000]

I asked for and got a static IP in the hope geolocation would eventually put me on the right server. That hadn't happened so I asked them to switch off the static IP to see if a dynamic IP would be more likely to update my location (I had only waited 2 days when I upgraded to Full Fibre, which really wasn't giving the system long enough to update). Anyway, they finally switched off the static IP in the early hours. When I woke up, I needed to change the router setting to get IP's dynamically.

The odd thing is that I have not changed the settings on the Grandstream adapter, yet the phone still works. I assume this means that we don't actually need a static IP for the phone to work on 3rd party equipment.

[Ripshod]

I don't think static/dynamic IP matters much. After all vf's built in option works fine either way and all we're doing is emulating that (really nice to be usin the present tense).

Anyone that has problems with dynamic IP can look into the other ata settings such as DDNS. 

[chrisnasah]

Hi,

Once your IP changes incoming will stop working, i had same issue.

I enabled under NAT to use Stun and used google STUN which does the job for me when IP changes.  I do have a DDNS on my address which helps STUN servers when IPs change.

Maybe someone with more knowledge can explain how STUN work.

[prs1000]

Ah I only checked that I could make a call.

[prs1000]

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@prs1000 wrote:

Ah I only checked that I could make a call.

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Yes, you're correct. Incoming calls don't work. I'll change the settings and check out STUN. Thanks.

EDIT: OK, STUN seems easy enough. I changed the NAT setting to STUN and removed my IP address from the "Use this IP" box. Then in the advanced tab of the Grandstream box I entered a free STUN server address. Incoming calls are now working. 

There are lots of free STUN servers. I used stun.l.google.com:19302

[chrisnasah]

Yep i used the same server.

In case this helps anyone, i noticed some of my phone tones and mainly the phone ring tone had changed, i came across below link which says by default these devices come with USA settings.  I followed the changes below for my device which is HT812 and everything seems to be normal now

https://www.ukvoipforums.com/viewtopic.php?t=1061

[prs1000]

OK we just used the phone for the first time other than calling my own mobile. Tried a couple of numbers and the receiver couldn't hear us.

What settings do I need to look at on the grandstream?

I am back on a static ip so not using  STUN

[prs1000]

Think I sorted it. I tried changing codecs with no joy. I plugged in the VF router to make sure it wasn't the actual phone that was the problem and also to make sure the service itself was working. All was fine with the VF router so I plugged the other router back in and went through the config settings one by one and it works! There were a couple of settings that I would never have thought were the issue that I had incorrect (or at least different).

I suppose it could just have been a reboot of the grandstream box after all that...

[Ripshod]

My HT801 is no longer registering. Is anyone else experiencing an outage?

I've only noticed it this morning after a regular call failed to happen and the only thing I can think of is a router reboot last night, though reboots have never upset it before and another reboot of the router and ata hasn't fixed it. 

Asus RT-AC88U running Merlin with skynet and diversion active, but that setup hasn't changed since day one.

I'll be looking further into it after work. 

*edit*  Was registered fine when I got home and I've confirmed it's actually working again.. A little hiccup(?).

[chrisnasah]

Hello,

Been quite lately on this, how everyone getting on, fingers cross i haven't experienced any issue and working all good till date