Landline closure?

[#1]

Question to all who have already moved to VOIP or, like me, experimenting with it (A&A):

Does anyone have experience with Xinix as a Home VOIP provider, or know of any issues?

Any other provider?

Thanks

[#2]

@encapsulated no experience of them but looking at the website:-

Monthly subscription is expensive £9.99 on 12mth contract

Call rates are expensive 12p/min mobile 5p/min landline

Their supplied adpator is Grandstream HT701 which is discontinued

Number porting is cheap though at £10

[#3]

@encapsulated. I have been a Voipfone and A&A customer for the past 8 years. I mostly use Voipfone who were very helpful when i started.  Voipfone only allow one device to be registered.  A&A will ring multiple devices for incoming calls.  My Sipgate account is even older but you can no longer get their basic accounts.  Porting my BT landline number to Voipfone terminated the BT service. I had already cancelled the Plusnet ADSL service before the port.

See also: https://forums.thinkbroadband.com/voip.html

I have not heard of Xinix. 

[#4]

@encapsulated Does anyone have experience with Xinix as a Home VOIP provider, or know of any issues?

Any other provider?

Like you I’ve been trying VOIP. A&A are excellent but if you’re looking for a package have a look at Virtual Landline.

They’re really a business provider although they include single users. They want to sell you hardware or use their free app. Perhaps not a true VOIP solution?

In my case I took their unlimited calls package for £7.95 which has a fair useage policy but at 3600 minutes a month for all 01, 02, 03, and mobile calls incoming and outgoing it's pretty cheap. Its monthly and no contract – if you want to cancel they will suspend the number for up to six months at no cost.

In order to use your own hardware, in my case an ATA you need to contact support for the URL and password. It will only register one device per number but you can also ring or forward to mobiles etc. Porting seems to be free?

As a simple replacement for a Plusnet landline it seems quite good, however, the downside is that you can’t make calls to 111, 101 and the like - there may be others?

[#5]

Thanks @Batfrog @machare @MisterW 

Xinix tell me they will supply the 801 if requested. What is more, fully preconfigured and ready to go which A&A do not.

Also, they offer a code to enter to optionally listen to voicemails on the phone whereas A&A only send you an email with the recording . Can also login to their management system and listen there.

Listening on the phone is so much better as a traditional landline replacement. In most households the landline is shared. The email from A&A goes to me, even if the message is for my wife. Okay for business but not for home use.

Also Xinix say 

If you find any of our Hosted VoIP products cheaper anywhere else within 90 days of activating your service, we will lower our price and refund the difference, no questions asked, it's that simple!

[#6]

@encapsulated What is more, fully preconfigured and ready to go which A&A do not

If you order hardware from A & A , AFAIK its fully preconfigured.

Listening on the phone is so much better as a traditional landline replacement. In most households the landline is shared. The email from A&A goes to me, even if the message is for my wife.

I agree that sometimes being able to listen on the phone is better. However you still have to listen to know who its for and then (presumably) pass the phone on to whoever its for. So with A & A you just forward the email ...

I still have a free Sipgate account at home, so have both options.  I use Localphone https://www.localphone.com/ both at home and in the office for all outgoing calls since their call charges are about 1/2 that of other providers. You can register the number of your incoming provider so that outgoing calls present the correct CLI. You do, however, need voip hardware that can handle multiple accounts and a diaplan so that outgoing calls are routed correctly. At home I use a Gigaset N300 which can handle up to 6 accounts, in the office I have an Asterisk PBX. Localphone do have incoming number facilities but I've never used them for that, since they don't provide the facility to register an address for the Emergency services 999 calls ( which both A & A and Sipgate do )

[#7]

@MisterW From A&A site https://www.aa.net.uk/quick-order/ for Grandstream HT-801 ATA 

Grandstream HT-801 ATA Adaptor (1 FXS). Connect an analogue phone to a VoIP service. A RJ11 to BT socket is included, unit will need configuring.

You said

However you still have to listen to know who its for and then (presumably) pass the phone on to whoever its for.

Not if your phone shows the calling number (and matching name if in your contacts). You will not need to listen then. Their supplied VOIP phones are preconfigured but I have found that the Yealink W60P does not reliably match contact name to calling number, depending on how the contacts directory is built.

Xinix say

we register your number with emergency services again and it is a free service

[#8]

Grandstream HT-801 ATA Adaptor (1 FXS). Connect an analogue phone to a VoIP service. A RJ11 to BT socket is included, unit will need configuring.

@encapsulated that conflicts with the info here https://www.aa.net.uk/voice-and-mobile/voip-information/

Phones pre-configured when buying the number and phone from us

Maybe that only applies to 'phones' and not an ATA , but I can't see why it would ...

[#9]

@encapsulated Xinix say

we register your number with emergency services again and it is a free service

I just wonder if this is a good thing ? When moving house there are so much paperwork to do and so many people to inform doctors, DVLA, insurances, gas, electricity etc. since the phone will continue to work anywhere [as long as you are on line] it could easily be forgotten – like a mobile.

A few of years ago a friend of mine moved house twice in a couple of years. One day he needed a doctor’s appointment but on phoning the surgery they said he wasn’t registered with them and told him to ring the health authority who promptly told him his records had been marked PD – presumed dead! - probably age related  in this case. No doubt the surgery had phoned a few times to find the number unobtainable [and written] without response !

The point is that with a landline proper a change of address would be automatic whereas a VOIP number would continue to work and could send an ambulance on a wild goose chase as the operator’s screen would show the address filed against the phone number!

[#10]

@MisterW an ATA is not a phone.

There is a user-supplied configuration help file at https://support.aa.net.uk/VoIP_Phones_-_Grandstream_HT8xx

[#11]

@Batfrog 

we register your number with emergency services again and it is a free service

I just wonder if this is a good thing ?

We are not moving, it is PSTN that is being removed - without a removals firm! Anyway, the ported number will have our existing area code and many house moves are to a different area code.

[#12]

an ATA is not a phone.

I know that, I'd just taken their reference to 'phone' as referring to 'voip hardware'. If they're supplying phones pre-configured then I don't see why they can't supply the ATA pre-configured. After all, there's no special configuration needed for the actual phone you plug in to the ATA

I just wonder if this is a good thing ?

Registering an Emergency address does have Pros and Cons. Where the voip account is used exclusively as a fixed line replacement at one address then its a no-brainer. That's how mine is 'primarily' used but I do occasionally use it when away from home. In that circumstance I'm mindfull that using voip for an emergency call would not be useful.

Interestingly , I actually have two numbers on my voip account, my old one of 30 odd years from where I use to live some 50 miles from where I am now, and another with the area code of where I'm now living. Only the 2nd one has an emergency address registered. As an aside , its quite funny when I get cold calls on the old number saying 'we're in your area...' a response of ' I very much doubt it!' gets them totally confused.😀

[#13]

@MisterW I put in italics because it was you said!

So, arguably, it is not inconsistent, but I agree it is strange. I suspect the reason is that they have no control over what you connect to the adapter so do not want to have to deal with things going wrong. You could ask them.

[#14]

@MisterW For existing customers your suspicions are right. They do configure the ATA.

Mind you, they charge over the odds for it

[#15]

Mind you, they charge over the odds for it

A & A have never been cheap for most things like broadband but their support is exceptional!. What's somewhat surprising is that their voip offering is such good value. Hopefully they don't increase the prices too much...