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? 

[Jayach]

@cf996 

Do you know of anyone that has actually achieved this. Are you on FTTP yourself?

Another user on here @WelshPaul, who is very good on the VoIP side side of things as he is in the industry, thinks it may be tied to the physical Vodafone router. (MAC address possibly)

Would you like to comment @WelshPaul?

[cf996]

Hi @Jayach 

I have been using this config for about two months on Openreach FTTP. It's not tied to MAC address or serial number. The TOS values are where those who previously attempted were going wrong.

[Jayach]

Unfortunately, I'm not on FTTP, and have no likelihood of being able to get it anytime soon, so can't actually try myself, but hopefully someone else can and let us know how they get on.

[WelshPaul]

I didn't dig too deep at the time as I don't need or want to use my Vodafone landline, but when I looked into this back in Feb (I think it was), Vodafone were using a custom header 'X-Serialnumber' which was being sent in all communications. Personally, I never got a response from the remote server and I stopped there.

The pjsip.conf file linked above all looks good. It's possible that Vodafone have changed their stance on using your own hardware since then? After all, like I said at the time, Vodafone will lose out in the long run! They stand to loose a lot of extra income from all those customers who can no longer make any chargeable calls, buy their calling plans or pay for additional features.

I can try again but I will have to obtain my SIP credentials as I never saved them at the time. 

[cf996]

@WelshPaulI also went down the route of replicating all fields including 'X-Serialnumber'. On the VLAN tag, the priority was also set (3 I think it was) - this is a nightmare because the VID is set to 0 which isn't well supported on nearly all network devices. However in the end it was the case of setting the correct TOS values that solved the issue. Without this, the server doesn't respond at all as you mentioned.

[WelshPaul]

Good Sleuthing! 👍

[bruce_miranda]

I've gotten my VOIP login details from Vodafone. I did need to push the agent a little to know that I knew what I was taking about. They were trying to say the dsl user/password was the only details I needed. Luckily you can see your VOIP user id on the Vodafone router admin pages. So when they gave me the details, I could check them against that. 

Anyway, now why would I need Asterisk running if I am using a VOIP phone?

[Jayach]

@bruce_miranda 

So you are using your own VoIP phone on Vodafone's VoIP service?

Could you explain bit more on how you have achieved it, especially where in the router config you can find the necessary details.

[bruce_miranda]

Not yet using my own equipment but will start to shortly. Just deciding if I should use an old and obsolete phone adapter or embrace the future and move to IP phones.

In terms of your voip user id, you will find this on the main Vodafone router summary page. It will start with voi

[Jayach]

@bruce_miranda 

Do let us know how you get on. I've not heard of anyone who has achieved using Vodafone's VoIP service with their own equipment. (mind you people rarely post if something works, only when it doesn't)

I'm still on FTTC, so my phone isn't VoIP yet, just want to be prepared for when I can get FTTP. 😉