Newbie to Voip, want to sign up with BV some advices please

[flyhen]

Hello all,

Long time surfer, first time poster here..

I am seriously thinking about signing up with BV, and had emailed BV support back and forth about porting the number, and it seemed do-able with my SBC number as stated on their website

http://www.broadvoice.com/areacodes_keep_number.html

althought I have to sign and fax them a letter of authorization as well as a copy of our local carrier phone bill.

Anyways.. here's my question..

1. Has anyone done this before?
2. What about FAX, does it work most of the time? or, does it work?
3. What's the best VoIP Box I should be getting? No need to be fancy, something economic would be fine.. and this brings up two interetsing questions..
3.a Does anyone ever tried unlocking the D-Link 1402s/l such as stated here

http://www.dslreports.com/forum/rema...voip;mode=nest

and 3.b Is the Linksys WRTP54G Locked by Vonage? They are having a big promotion on that one right now, wonder if i can get that.

Thanks all!

[mberlant]

If you are indeed a long time surfer here you will understand right off that you will not get a lot of moral support in your desire to port a landline number to a VoIP provider. My personal opinion is that VoIP right now is a wonderful replacement for Long Distance service, but is not a suitable replacement for local telephone service.

The simple fact is that VoIP [over the public internet] technology cannot survive a power outage, internet service outage or congestion. Nor does VoIP [over the public internet] technology support true 911 service or fax/data services reliably. If even one of these features or services is important to you, you need to retain your basic telephone service. If you are absolutely sure that you can accept these limitations without complaint, let's have a look at your specific questions.

1. Yes, many people have ported POTS numbers to BroadVoice and other VoIP service providers. Stories of how smooth (or not) the process has gone abound on this and other forums.

2. As described on several threads here, there are no guarantees about success in sending or receiving faxes. Have a look around for threads that discuss the steps you must take to maximize your chances for success.

3. The best ATA for you to get is the one that has the features you desire from a company you respect. Do you need one or two lines? Do you need to interface to a real phone line also? Do you want two lines with one telephone instrument? Do you need to have a Dial Plan that you can manipulate? Once you have answered these questions for yourself you can proceed to go shopping for an ATA that fits your needs.

3.a. There are reports of both success and failure in unlocking a Lingo-locked 1402. A search or Google will bring up these stories.

3.b. As is widely reported here and elsewhere, nobody has yet unlocked any Vonage-locked Linksys device. Unless you want to subscribe to Vonage now and forever you may want to steer clear of a Vonage-locked router.