[necrossis]

Hi all,
Now that this PhoneGnome 2.0 came out, and after extensively reading on their site, as well as here on the Voxilla forums, I'm a little excited and want to buy this adapter (the price drop was also a factor in my decision). But before I go on, I'd like to get some clarifications regarding this device. I've been playing with a Sipura 1001 for a while and configuring different services on it like Stanaphone, FWD, IPKall, etc. But, As I understand, this PhoneGnome is not open to user configurations, right? Which forces me to learn as much as possible of the possibilities before I incur the expense.

Anyway, my questions are as follows:

-I will be buying this device to send it to my brother in Nicaragua (central america), he has ADSL broadband.
-I live in Florida, U.S. and have cable broadband, a Sipura 1001 configured with FWD and Stanaphone for incoming calls and my mobile phone--no PSTN.
-My mom lives in North Carolina; she doesn't have internet access nor PSTN, she only has a mobile phone.

My concerns:
1. Will I be able to direct-call my brother and vice-versa, since we'd both have sip capable devices (spa1001 and phonegnome)? If yes, how? What settings (if any) would I or him need to have in our devices?

2. If I register my cellphone and my mom's cellphone in the PhoneGnome's website, does that mean that my brother can call either of us to our mobile phones and the call will be free since we would be phonegnome members?

3. Can we configure a service like Stanaphone or IPKall in the Phonegnome that my brother will have in Nicaragua so that we could call him from the U.S. for free?

4. And finally, I've heard that ADSL is not suitable for VoIP. How does the PhoneGnome handle stuff like QoS. Will we notice degradation in call quality. My brother currently uses the Stanaphone softphone for us to call him, but the quality is not too good. I call him using Skype and the quality is better.

Please advice or point me to where I can find more information regarding these concerns.

Thanks in advance,

Alejandro

[PhoneBoy]

If he has a PhoneGnome and you have a SPA1001 tied to FWD, he will be able to dial you by simply dialing **393yourfwdnumber. You will have to store his SIP URL (which will be number@sip.phonegnome.com) as a speed dial in order to call him back.

If both you and your mom register your mobile phones with PhoneGnome, then yes he will be able to call for free.

PhoneGnome supports routing PSTN calls over an Internet Telephony Service Provider of your choice. They include a few, but you can also use ones they don't officially support. I don't think Stanaphone will work, but I have personally had success with Voxee.

Not all ADSLs are created equal. I run VoIP on my ADSL and it works fine, but then again it has the bandwidth. Best thing to do would be to run a test such as the one that Voxilla provides: AreYouVoIPReady? If the test succeeds, you can probably run VoIP. Personally, I recommend having at least 256kb/s of bandwidth in each direction for the best results.

PhoneGnome doesn't do any QoS. It's just a device like your SPA1001. It may work better or worse depending on a number of factors.

[ddh819]

Originally Posted by necrossis

3. Can we configure a service like Stanaphone or IPKall in the Phonegnome that my brother will have in Nicaragua so that we could call him from the U.S. for free?

In case you were wondering, you can also set up an IPKall number for the PhoneGnome also. I have one set up like that. This would let your mom call your brother's PhoneGnome using her minutes or free night/weekends, if she has that kind of plan.

[necrossis]

I just received the PG I ordered to send to my brother who lives in Nicaragua (Central America).
I took it out of the box and hooked everything up here (remember I don't have a PSTN line) to see how it works and to see if I can understand the whole thing so I know how to explain it to my brother.
I hooked the line coming out of my SPA1001, which I have configured with Stanaphone and IPKall, into the Line socket and a regular phone device into the Phone socket.
I just wanted to try and call my cell, since I have my cell registered with "MyPhoneGnome.com". Apparently, the PG doesn't like not to have a real PSTN line hooked up to it because, after the 10 minutes the device needs to configure itself, I lift the telephone and I get the message saying " PG cannot configure because it cannot recognize a valid PSTN line." or something like that.

Additionally, can anybody, other than PhoneGnome (voxilla member), clarify this statement made by PhoneGnome (ditto) on the thread at the top of the PG forum when he/she was replying to the use of PG without a PSTN line:
"Final disclaimer: Do this at your own peril. Seriously, you may render your PhoneGnome inoperable or other harmful effects may result. If you require technical support to diagnose or repair problems that turn out to be a result of this unsupported use, you could be subject to service fees or terminaton of your PhoneGnome service."

I mean, I understand that they, as a company, can get in trouble (I think) with some government agency since this is not intended to be a replacement for PSTN because of the 911 issue here in the US, but to go to the extend that the device may actually break? Can anybody clarify this?

Thanks,