CHEAPEST PHONE AND INTERNET PACKAGE

[skandagupta]

And you moved here why? Sounds like you would be happier in a country with cheaper phone packages.

HOW is that even pretending to be an intelligent response. guess its the old sisu monitor, alias, neantherdal hank. but seriously folks, what is the best(cheapest ) phone/net package?

Slight sliding here, we`re cro magnons,not neanderthals.

[Pursuivant]

but ,on a technical point don,t you need the computer permanently on, and need to be sitting by it to receive calls, unlike the conventional landline?,

"talk talk" is a VOIP service you douche - same thing you don't need a landline phone to sit by and recieve calls either if you get a provider that does it to the mobile - its just an interface if its PC/phone/mobile

[brengun]

yes one can get international connection on voip , but ,on a technical point don,t you need the computer permanently on, and need to be sitting by it to receive calls, unlike the conventional landline?

Only if you insist on using proprietary VoIP protocols controlled by a single company, such as Skype. For instance, there are many stand-alone VoIP phones (including wireless DECT handsets) for standards-based SIP VoIP. These connect to your broadband router and do not require a PC to work.

.................... THANKS JUKKA, , SO THESE STAND ALONE PHONES ! CONNECT TO THE NET,? DOES ONE HAVE A NUMBER WHICH PEOPLE CAN CALL FROM A CONVENTIONAL LANDLINE AT REASONABLE RATES?, THANKS AGAIN.

[brengun]

....
"talk talk" is a VOIP service you douche - same thing you don't need a landline phone to sit by and recieve calls either if you get a provider that does it to the mobile - its just an interface if its PC/phone/mobile[/quote]...................................................................................................................... DOUCHE, eh,? maybe, but they use conventional phones, , keep the same landline number and plug into the old phone socket,, all they do is replace British Telecom and their horrible monopoly,, . who cares about the technical details, just let us have same landline but much cheaper.. thing is can one get the same here,, ? if so how, and forgive me for not knowing bout the technicalities...

[Upphew]

...they use conventional phones, , keep the same landline number and plug into the old phone socket,, all they do is replace British Telecom and their horrible monopoly,, . who cares about the technical details, just let us have same landline but much cheaper.. thing is can one get the same here,, ? if so how, and forgive me for not knowing bout the technicalities...

http://saunalahti.fi/nettipuhelin/
keep the old landline number, check
old phone socket, check (but you'll need adsl modem to sit between your phone and the socket)
same landline, check (but you'll need someone to provide the internet connectivity to it)

The technicalities are the point as they are the way to make things cheaper. You can ride a horse or motorbike, basically same thing, but the technicalities make it possible ride 300km without feeding the beast or to jump 30 meters or store the vehicle for winter without food. But you should remember that even without food you need to change the oils and lubricate the chains. There always is two sides to every coin.

edit: I'm happy(ish) customer of saunalahti, nothing more. Its just easiest for me to find things in familiar site.

[maxxfi]

edit: I'm happy(ish) customer of saunalahti, nothing more. Its just easiest for me to find things in familiar site.

Me too (as nettipuhelin user)

[Jukka Aho]

THANKS JUKKA, , SO THESE STAND ALONE PHONES ! CONNECT TO THE NET,?

Your Caps Lock key seems to have stuck.

Yes, they have an ordinary 8-pin modular jack (aka “Ethernet connector” or “RJ-45” connector.) The wireless (DECT) handsets have that same connector on the base station.

DOES ONE HAVE A NUMBER WHICH PEOPLE CAN CALL FROM A CONVENTIONAL LANDLINE AT REASONABLE RATES?, THANKS AGAIN.

There are service providers which can assign you a conventional telephone number and relay calls between your SIP phone(s) and POTS. These services are for fee, of course, but typically cheaper than with the regular landline providers. See here for some pointers... although the rates quoted on that page are not up-to-date, and the page also lists other than SIP providers/services.

Also note that you can get SIP-to-POTS gateway service from a local SIP/VOIP operator in the country where you’ll be calling the most... in which case you would essentially hold a local phone number in that country, even though the phone you use for making and receiving the calls would be located here in Finland.

SIP phones can also be used as stand-alone devices, without an operator. You can call to another person who owns a SIP phone simply by using their IP number or DNS name – assuming the phone holds one. (The SIP phones typically have some memory where you can store quick-dial presets, so it’s not necessary to key in these addresses all the time.)

It is possible to turn an ordinary phone into a SIP phone by using an adapter. Such adapters can also be found as a built-in feature on certain broadband routers.

Technically oriented persons can also set up a SIP phone exchange on their own, by using e.g. the free Asterisk software. This allows advanced functionality such as call-forwarding, voicemail, extension number scheme defined by yourself, etc. – and with proper hardware even integration to the normal telephone system...

[Jukka Aho]

old phone socket, check (but you'll need adsl modem to sit between your phone and the socket)

Well, that’s not exactly like “using the old phone socket” then, is it? :P I think what the OP meant was that he would like to connect his existing analog telephone to any random telephone socket in the house and still get a dialtone, despite using VOIP behind the scenes.

I guess it’s possible to get this kind of VOIP service in the UK. In other words, you make a deal with some random VOIP operator and they will do whatever is necessary to provide the service to your house without actually visiting there and without installing any new devices at your end. So, in this scenario, it’s all handled transparently at “their” end: in the local telephone exchange, or by re-routing calls according to some contract between the VOIP operator and the local telco (...or is the “local telco” always British Telecom there?)

Now, in Finland, it’s possible to use VOIP from an ordinary landline for international calls, by explicitly dialing a certain prefix which connects your call via a given VOIP operator. You’d still be paying the local (per-minute) rates to your local telco, though... and getting a monthly bill from them; not directly from the VOIP operator.

However, I have not heard of a Finnish VOIP service operator which, upon subscription, would disconnect you from your local telco (and their billing system, putting an end to your old landline subscription) and automatically route all your calls – even the local ones – via their own network, while still allowing you to use your existing analog phones and analog phone sockets the ordinary way, and requiring no Internet connection (and no additional devices whatsoever) installed at your end.

That said, if your goal is not to subscribe to the “traditional” landline service but make ordinary analog telephones and ordinary phone sockets use VOIP, this kind of a thing can be arranged... but not without an Internet connection, and not without purchasing some additional equipment. How?

The first step would be disconnecting the entire telephone wiring/socket system in your home from the telco cable. This is a relatively simple thing to do: you will just need to find the connection box (or phone socket) where the telephone cable from the local telco enters your house (or apartment) and where it is connected to your house wiring. Then you would just disconnect those two little copper wires...

However, if you get your Internet connection via that same telco telephone cable (and not via the cable tv coax, for example) you would need to connect it directly to your ADSL modem. This would, in most cases, involve installing a separate cable run and a dedicated phone socket for the modem alone. (When you disconnect the house phone wiring/sockets from the telco cable, you will no longer be able to use the regular phone sockets for the ADSL modem, of course... so something needs to be done to keep that connection alive.)

Once all this is done, you would reactivate the house telephone wiring by connecting it to a SIP adapter, making those phone sockets “live” again. The SIP adapter provides a dialtone for your existing analog phones – just like the telco exchange would – and handles the technicalities of setting up calls over the network, ringing the phones, and converting the analog telephone signals to digital VOIP stream and vice versa. (Whether this adapter is a separately purchased box or a built-in feature of your router doesn’t matter – they work the same way.)

Note that while this setup already enables free calls to SIP phones, you’d still need to subscribe to a VOIP service to get a “real” phone number and to be able to call ordinary landlines or mobile phones.

Of course, not everyone is willing to mess with their house/apartment phone wiring. This approach will probably only appeal to those who are tinkerers at their heart and know which way to hold a screwdriver. But at any rate, if you have any DIY spirit in you, it’s technically a quite simple thing to do, and a good option if you don’t want to render your old phone sockets and phones useless and lifeless when moving on to a VOIP-based system. And even if you have never subscribed to a landline service in your life – and have not plans on doing that in the future, either – you might still want to consider taking those otherwise useless phone sockets in VOIP use... For one thing, it enables using the cheap, ordinary analog phones you can buy at any electronics outlet. For another, it might save you from the trouble of having to run Ethernet cable to all those rooms where you want to receive VOIP calls...

[maxxfi]

I've done at home basically what Jukka has so nicely explained above.
Only, instead of messing up with phone plugs, I just plugged my SIP adapter
to the base of an analog DECT cordless phone
My flat is not that big, but if it would be, I would simply buy some
extra 'satellite' DECT phone to spread around, all connected to same base.

[brengun]

Thanks, JUKKA, for the great detailed response, sounds like you know what you,re talking about. and UPPHEW, loved the well worked horse metaphor, and MAXXFI for the dect etc tips.. iTS SOMETHING i,LL LOOK TO GET MY HEAD AROUND LATER,,, but for now i,ll keep my standard line with Sonera, and have it for mainly incoming,, I was using the cheap servers(995 33) where they announce ,"4 cents per minute" but dishonestly omit to mention all the add ons,( like sonera,s connection and minute charges,,) ,lot of these sins of omission about, check dna,s raja(another l8tr post) I have a call barring code installed, which bars international and calls to mobiles, , this forces me to skype when i need to make international calls,, and yes ,mobile charges are quite reasonable here but i,m not too happy about having my ears etc cooked by microwaves, therefore i limit my usage and prefer to ,text,, ,,,,,thanks again to all .

[onkko]

I was using the cheap servers(995 33) where they announce ,"4 cents per minute" but dishonestly omit to mention all the add ons,( like sonera,s connection and minute charges,,)

From "prices" section in their pages say clearly "Hinnat sisältävät arvonlisäveron 22%. Hinnat on esitetty sentteinä per minuutti. Lisäksi operaattorisi veloittaa asettamansa paikallisverkkomaksun tai matkapuhelumaksun.". And dna pages say also "Edullisen 99555-ulkomaanpuheluhinnan lisäksi maksat puhelustasi liittymäoperaattorin veloittaman paikallisverkkomaksun tai matkapuhelunmaksun." Dont lie.

[brengun]

From "prices" section in their pages say clearly "Hinnat sisältävät arvonlisäveron 22%. Hinnat on esitetty sentteinä per minuutti. Lisäksi operaattorisi veloittaa asettamansa paikallisverkkomaksun tai matkapuhelumaksun.". And dna pages say also "Edullisen 99555-ulkomaanpuheluhinnan lisäksi maksat puhelustasi liittymäoperaattorin veloittaman paikallisverkkomaksun tai matkapuhelunmaksun." Dont lie.

[¨¨¨¨.......... technically and legally you,re probably right, BUT THERE,S A NOTION CALLED "TRANSPARENCY", and the point is that they emphatically are not! everything is hidden in lots of opaque smallprint. And one is simply trying to counter their dishonest advertising, "4 cents per minute," END OF.,to quote a fab comment on the supermarket blog.,end of.

[Jukka Aho]

but for now i,ll keep my standard line with Sonera, and have it for mainly incoming

I forgot to mention that some of these SIP ATA adapters have a pass-through connector for the old-fashioned analog landline telephone service... which enables you to receive calls from the regular telephone network and from the Internet, both on the same phone. (That is, if you want to subscribe to a local landline service, instead of routing those calls through a VOIP operator.) When you’re dialing out, you choose the target network (the VOIP service or the “normal” telephone network) with a prefix.

[brengun]

Thanks, Jukka, that sounds good. and thanks for all your thoughtful contributions. I bet there,s a lot of confused people out there who just want to get some definitive best solution to the telephony business. cheers. bren

[dampa]

Get any of AVM's Annex A Fritz boxes, connect it to your ADSL. Get a number from Saunalahti and configure your Fritz box. You will have a Finnish landline number and 3000mins/month. You can as well get a geographical UK DID [landline number], configure the number with the Fritz!Box and your folks in the UK can call that number for peanuts and talk with you here in Finland without sweating your pants.