I've been looking at the idea of Voip, and through reviews both here and other sites, have come to the conclusion that to get the cheapest calls with the least amount of inconvenience, and with added benefit regarding calling from abrad, that I need a Sipura SPA 3000.

For those not knowing, the BASIC description of the unit is that you can route calls via any preprogrammed supplier (1899, 18185, 0844 access etc) or VOIP. You can also ring from abroad to your unit, activate it and ring out. In other words, ring from Hungary (example) to your UK landline at 10p per min, dial an Hungarian mobile at 1p per min via 0844 for less than Hungarian landline to mobile. Or even call the yanks for 0p per via VOIP (+ call charge at 10p per min from Hungary)

However, the price for this unit in the marketplace varies considerably.
Some suppliers want £79.99 + Government theft duty = £93.99
Other want want £79.99 inclusive (+ or including postage) = £79.99
I have spotted it on the PC World business site for £49.99 + legally imposed theft tax inc postage = £58.74
BIG difference of £35.25 or 37.5% saving!
http://www.pcwb.com/catalogue/item/LKSTEL03?speedtrapid=shopping.com&lead=shoppi...

Can anyone offer a site with a better price? Preferably UK, so if there is bad customer service it can be returned easily (possibly via a window if it's really bad)

The next thing is, has anyone had personal experience of this unit?

A.V.N.M.

The Sipura 3000 is undoubtedly an excellent bit of kit but I do caution you that its really something of an enthusiasts device and does take a good deal of input on the part of the user to both make sense of what it can do and to set it up to operate seamlessly.

By way of proving this please just take a look at http://www.dslreports.com/forum/remark,13657675 ; where you will find some excellent resources and also the Sipura forum at Voxilla http://voxilla.com/forum-viewforum-f-14.html

There are UK users at www.voipuser.org who can also give advice but mine would be to research a little further to help you decide whether it suits your needs.

Andy's suggestion of using Asterisk is a a good one and will give you more flexibility long term.

Surely the concern of quality of service when also using the net is negligable when you consider that you are probably sat near the phone, and as such don't need it diverted to the mobile. If you are out, then you're not on the net.

If you are on the net and a voip call comes through, then I could understand. But the solution surely is to talk with that person, giiving them your attention, then continuing with the net.

I was considering the sipura because of it's advertised capabilities. I'm not too keen on the idea of having another pc on the desk running a software I've never used, just to divert my calls.

My scenarios that I am looking to resolve are...
1 My customers will ring me on my 0800 number, which will point to either my voip or landphone. The solution, whatever it is, will redirect my call using the current cheapest option to my mobile. At the moment that would be 1p per minute. This would avoid a direct 0800 to mobile service at 16p per min + increased service rental. Thus clients can call me free, and all I would pay is £6 for 800 0800 mins monthly + the 1p per min charge to the mobile. I could have 800 minutes of customer call at a cost of £14 per month. Bargain.

2 I could ring my home phone whilst out, and get it to forward the call to the Hungarian number I need.
Thus with the deal offered by mercurymobiles at the moment of 200 x network mins monthly for £50 per year, my call from a mobile would cost (round figures) 3p per min from the mobile to the home, and 0p on voipcheap to an Hungarian landline, or the extotionate rate of 6p per min via bestminutes to their mobile (niftylist has to be updated, they're showing 5p per min. They have been informed) A total of 3 or 9p per min whilst out in the vehicle, UK to Hungary.

Obviously I could stop, and if I didn't have the change for the phone, I could ring my 0800 number and get it to connect me via voip or 0844 depending on the number required. Or if I had change, call home via 0844 and save 2p per min.

I saw mentioned on one site, that voip has a problem with faxes. Something about sending the data in packets. If that is the case, does that mean that whatever unit is placed in the line, sipura or linksys etc, if it was set to use voip for the cheapest landlines, that the unit would have to have an override to avoid it faxing out to a landline via voip?


With regards to the rip off postage rate charged by pc world business, that, as I have now found is something they won't tell you about until you register for an account.

To andy9. You're right about the pricing. It should have read "Hungarian mobile at 5p per min via 0844......."
This would have been correct at time of posting. It would still work out cheaper than dialling directly to an Hungarian mobile from their phones.

Good news guys the Sipura SPA-3000 is now in fact available for £64.58 including VAT and delivery from www.microwarehouse.co.uk/catalogue/item/LKSTEL03?speedtrapid=froogle&lead=froogl...; I found this using Google's Froogle search facility.

Other places appeared cheaper but weren't because they charged £10 delivery + VAT on the delivery.

This price is only about £15 more than the much inferior Linksys PAP2-NA unlocked version with VAT and delivery.  Ok I know the locked version is a lot cheaper and can in theory be unlocked but it seems to keep locking itself as soon as you upgrade the firmware etc from what I read.

My call bill with 1899 was £6, although more typically its around £4.   And I expect any moment soon 1899 will put up the connection charge to 4p.  The time has come to make the change to Voip.

andy9 wrote on Feb 2^nd, 2006 at 2:58pm:


You seem to be mainly mobile phone based andy9 whereas I am mainly home fixed line based with occasional trips away overseas and still wanting to receive calls.  So I mainly want a Linksys PAP2 NA equivalent ATA for free or near free outgoing calls and then would like a few extra functions on top.  I would like my home PSTN line or a Voip equivalent on the same exchange (with Sipgate) to be able to divert calls free of charge or nearly free of charge to another landline where I sometimes am at the weekend or to a mobile and this device seems like it can do all that.  Also I want the diverson to not be obvious to the caller which I believe this device can achive fairly well.  Some of the voip services you use make it obvious to the caller they aren't calling your home landline.  Also the voip number you use is owned by that company so you are at the mercy of their calling rates for forwarding (whereas I can use Sipgate incoming and then use who I like outgoing)

Your point about bundled minutes on mobiles seems to presume having an expensive mobile contract with those minutes in the first place.  My Vodafone Smartplus call credit has gone down about £3 in the last 6 months!  I make mainly all my calls on landline where I can.  Obviously If I was working out on the road things would be quite different.  Realistically if I was away travelling I would only make and receive a modest number of calls.  Clearly one's average friend or business acquanitance is going to find calling a Liechtenstein number very offputting.  They will perceive it as expensive and won't do it beacuse most people are ignorant on such matters and find it hard to understand how things like dial through services work.  This is what the "I'm a dummy do it for me" convenience of ripoff CPS services from people like TalkTalk are all about.

It seems to me like you don't make fixed line calls from home a lot in the daytime or you are one of those people who has a desktop computer on 24/7 to take voip calls?  I have a notebook I always take with me when I go away so there would be nothing to redirect my voip number with if I didn't have an ATA.

Also I'm factoring in switching to the Post Office and then using Voip for outgoing on everything if I get the Sipura so the £50 Cash Back from the Post Office practically pays for the Sipura device.

Quote:

Errr, not quite. I haven't used any VoIP at all yet, but am thinking of the call diversion and callback services of some providers. The cps here has most calls free so I'm not in a big hurry to VoIP for ordinary use.

I wouldn't say I am more mobile based, but I have had contracts with cashback of most of the line rental, such that the last few deals average around £10. I think I mentioned the callthrough operators mainly in response to the OP as I wondered if the ATA at home could be redundant for some of his requirements, as 0870 and foreign calls can be made from some contract-inclusive minutes.

On Riing, nobody has ever rung my actual number. I have had an 0844 number that costs the caller 2p/min from BT, then me 7p to reach me. I could have given them an 0800 number then paid 11p myself, or an 0871 number costing them 9p. Those tariffs have gone up or been discontinued recently, so I've made another arrangement, which could be a lot cheaper, but that's for another thread really.

I'm not arguing with the principle of having and using the facilities that this device will offer, just pointing out that some of those uses are available by other methods, like callthrough or callback, so it is worth some would-be users being a little circumspect about whether it is necessary. If I'm not in, someone else probably is, so we've never done call diversion from the landline. For me, it now looks like diversion of mobile to foreign mobile can't be improved any more, or calling from home to foreign mobile same price as UK ones.

But can you dial in to this unit, then choose the routing out from the remote location, as that could have some interesting possibilities? I believe you can dial in or out via VoIP or pstn, but I don't know how pre-programmed or flexible it is.

andy9 wrote on Feb 3^rd, 2006 at 12:03am:


Just-Dial Saver says they charge 4.9p per minute to all Liechtenstein numbers on their website.  Or at least they don't list a separate mobile rate for Liechtenstein when they do show one for all the other larger EU and Efta states.

I have just moved across to Just-Dial Saver thinking that voip was too much hassle but with me probably being turned back into a TalkTalk Talk1 customer by CPW any time soon by force it may be time to move on to the Post Office and or to using Voip in conjunction with it.