Internet telephony has been possible for a long time, but implementation was usually fiddly, requiring a PC and headset, and a good understanding of voice over IP (VoIP). However, a new generation VoIP-enabled wireless broadband routers designed for homes and small offices have made adoption a whole lot easier.
The devices reviewed for this group test allow broadband-enabled homes or offices to take advantage of the relatively low cost of VoIP calls. Most allow multiple VoIP accounts, and also enable administrators to set up dialling rules so that, say, calls to the US go through the least expensive account.
Several other telephony features come bundled with these routers, so can they handle pretty much all the communications needs of a small office, as their makers claim? This is what we wanted to find out with this group test. We set our baseline at Wi-Fi-enabled Ethernet ADSL routers with the ability to handle VoIP using standard Session Initiation Protocol (SIP).
Most of the products we reviewed were supplied by Telappliant, one of the UK’s VoIP pioneers. Where possible, we installed Telappliant’s VoIPtalk service, as well as VoIP services from VoipBuster and Sipgate. We tested each product on an ADSL line, using normal Wi-Fi clients and Dect phones.
For a comparatively new class of product, there is already a fairly high level of standardisation. That said, the products reviewed here display some variation in terms of features. For instance, most of these products include some sort of USB connector, but a few only allow PCs to connect to the internet through the router – not especially useful now, given that virtually all PCs are equipped with Ethernet. We’re more impressed with products that provide a normal USB socket that can be used to share a printer or a storage device.
Another variation is in the flexibility of the phone ports. Some of these devices are VoIP-only, while some combine VoIP and PSTN by providing a socket to connect to the office phone outlet. Some have dual-mode ports that include the PSTN in the dialling rules, while others allow no customisation and, in some, the PSTN port is a “lifeline” that is only active when the box is switched off or power fails.
But it is in ease of use where these devices vary most widely. Some provide a well-designed web interface, and helpful guidance, while others have interfaces that are so packed with management features that configuration and admin becomes pretty tricky.
We also looked for products that could connect via an Ethernet uplink instead of their built-in ADSL connection, because some internet connections are presented as an Ethernet port on customer premises equipment. In our case we used a highly-reliable Urban WiMax point-to-point wireless link presented as Ethernet, as well as a rather low-quality DSL line from TalkTalk.
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