Yes - a mifi router linked to a well-positioned outdoor antenna, ie high up with wifi calling would improve the effective mobile signal.
I believe you can get rechargeable Mifi router - which would give that resilience
We already have a UPS for our router. However it is my understanding whether right or wrong that in event of a power failure, fibre may not work, but copper line will work? I think Roger is suggesting something like a wifi unit that people fit on the roof of their caravan for a better signal?
That's correct - with the antenna on top of your house it may compensate for the poor signal - of course, if a power cut is widespread then power to the local mobile masts will be cut as well !
As with our caravans and boosters, there has to be a signal to boost, but the OP has virtually no signal and needs to drive up the road.
So the viability depends on how much signal that "virtually non existent" one actually is.
Needs to be a sale or return deal or borrow one to check it out, or its going to be a gamble, an expensive one for a well respected booster system,
Might be worth appealing to any local individual with a portable booster kit to come and try it there?
So the viability depends on how much signal that "virtually non existent" one actually is.
Needs to be a sale or return deal or borrow one to check it out, or its going to be a gamble, an expensive one for a well respected booster system,
Might be worth appealing to any local individual with a portable booster kit to come and try it there?
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Now it gets interesting. For phoning out using our mobiles, they have always gone through the router due to poor signal. Been like that for years. About 2 months ago I upgraded my phone to the S24.
I continue to assume poor signal and automatically used the router for outgoing calls. In the past couple of minutes I switched off the wifi facility on the phone and dialed our landline number. Surprisingly it rang and I was able to do a voice call. I then tried OH's phone and it also rang and was able to do a voice call. The reading is showing as one bar on both phones.
Either they have upgraded the transmitter or new phone is an improvement over the A53 when it comes to poor signal. This does increase our options and it seems the way forward would be to dump the landline and no bother about VOIP?
However by the same token, yesterday mobile phone was in the lounge when it rang, but by the time we heard it and got to lounge the person rang off. It was a private number so we are assuming it was a rather important call we were expecting. If they had phoned the landline, we would have been able to answer the phone in the kitchen.
I continue to assume poor signal and automatically used the router for outgoing calls. In the past couple of minutes I switched off the wifi facility on the phone and dialed our landline number. Surprisingly it rang and I was able to do a voice call. I then tried OH's phone and it also rang and was able to do a voice call. The reading is showing as one bar on both phones.
Either they have upgraded the transmitter or new phone is an improvement over the A53 when it comes to poor signal. This does increase our options and it seems the way forward would be to dump the landline and no bother about VOIP?
However by the same token, yesterday mobile phone was in the lounge when it rang, but by the time we heard it and got to lounge the person rang off. It was a private number so we are assuming it was a rather important call we were expecting. If they had phoned the landline, we would have been able to answer the phone in the kitchen.
There has to be a system using the mobile's Bluetooth facility to "amplify" the ringing sound. Afterall, similar is used in our cars, and my buds.
A quick Google brings this up, but I suspect more research will find cheaper adequate solutions.
I think I can achieve it on my SONY sound bar/speaker/brick???
A quick Google brings this up, but I suspect more research will find cheaper adequate solutions.
I think I can achieve it on my SONY sound bar/speaker/brick???
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Not sure it improves your situation much. You might as well leave Wifi Calling on all the time since during power cuts its not unknown for the mobile signal to get even worse.
When we ditched our VoIP and went entirely mobile it just became a habit to move the phone around with us, after all there are no wires. As I mentioned previously I can also answer calls on my Bluetooth hearing aids.
I'd be interested to know if folks who have mobiles with wifi calling and also a VoIP service why you have both?
We will have both when our switch is complete, in practice the VOIP is only for incoming landline calls - there are lots of people who only have our landline number and we wouldn't want to lose touch - all outgoing calls are on the mobiles as they're "free", within our allowance - but only having both because the Vodafone VOIP is free, wouldn't be paying a monthly subscription for the service.
As above, quite different numbers, our VoIP uses what for 50 years had been our private land-line's number and on a different number on the same system a number related to my professional activities.
The VoIP facilitates calling internationally to countries we need at a trivial call rate, typically sub 2 p per minute. [a big plus with how one user here chats to family & friends in NZ, Australia and the US]
Our mobiles, very much just personal lines, but also enabled to access incoming and making outgoing calls via our two landlines, wherever we are. So, again able to call internationally on a mobile at our VoIP rates.
Horses for courses.
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Spoke with Plusnet this morning and had a long chat with a very helpful person who explained everything to me. Basically what has been said on this thread. We have decided to ditch the landline saving us about £180 for the first seven months. After that the saving drops by £36 a year and in second year saving drops another £36!
Actually I am not sure if VOIP would be very useful to us as generally the hospital or surgery call us on our mobile phones. The majority of calls received on landline seem to be generally scam calls and very few of them anyway as the have TPS set up.
However there is no contract with either of the two VOIP providers mentioned earlier in the thread, it may be worth taking it on for a few months to see how we get on.
Be aware that if you want to go back to a landline after a couple of months it's almost certain to require a new number - you can keep the old number if you switch directly to VOIP but not if you let the old number lapse.
Being digital, over the broadband it is likely to be both clearer and more reliable than a weak mobile which, though also digital can be affected by the weather and system loading, for examples. Certainly likely to be better than the old analogue system, our is.
Don't forget you are likely to have to invest in some hardware to fully exploit VoIP, though I think there can be a way to get it directly via your mobile. So, going VoIP other than via a phone provider[from their modem] does cost.
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Thanks for the heads up on number. If we want VOIP base station so that we can use the phones in the bedroom, kitchen and lounge then the cost is about £50 so that option does not seem worthwhile to us. Plus of course the fact that we hardly ever get any landline calls these days as Whatsapp is the cheaper option.
It doesn't have to cost anything - my Vodafone VOIP landline comes FOC and my old, but digital, cordless phone base station will just plug in to the new router.
That differs from the BT group, they were if not still charging a monthly fee for retention of a landline number over their VoIP.
When considering a change from EE last spring all the main players I looked at that offered VIOP “landline “ charged a monthly fee and different prices depending on the plan selected. At the time Virgins deal was by far the cheapest and no complaints at their service so far. Our DECT phone hub just connected in to the Virgin router and we have one wireless DECT -voip phone in the lounge with another in the bedroom. We could have 3 or 4 if required as handsets are cheap enough.
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That's why I opted to move my home landline from EE to A&A, plus to be "free" of it being wedded to my Internet provider, since they were forced to allow that freedom.
Usually there's no such thing as Free of Charge. You end up paying for whatever it is in someway.
FWIW:
Before dropping VoIP when the contract was up for renewal I looked carefully at our calls and who had our landline number. It was easy to change the main users over to the mobile number by editing on line accounts and let friends know via emails or direct calls. There have been no problems so far.
Overseas calls to friends and family are made using the Signal app and costs nothing extra.
FWIW:
Before dropping VoIP when the contract was up for renewal I looked carefully at our calls and who had our landline number. It was easy to change the main users over to the mobile number by editing on line accounts and let friends know via emails or direct calls. There have been no problems so far.
Overseas calls to friends and family are made using the Signal app and costs nothing extra.
Not such a good idea to place the aerial high up for two reasons.
The main reason is that you have to have a downlead to wherever your mi-fi or whatever and at the frequencies being used the losses on the cable are so great you may see no benefit.
The second issue is that given the direct signal is poor if your system is using an aerial located at a high position there is a good chance that the system may hit more than one base station site which could cause system confusion.
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