Swapping to Broadband VoIP from a UK Copper Home Phone Line

All of this is frustrating because the ability to retain your home phone number, no matter who you might choose for broadband, is an important consideration for consumers. The good news is that Ofcom are mindful of this and they’re working on a possible solution using blockchain (here and here), but it’s too soon to know how this will pan out.

In the meantime some people today might still desire to replace their home phone with a residential friendly VoIP alternative and so we’ve written this simplified guide to act as a primer. Hopefully this will help you to understand some of the terminology, processes and options that exist.

Our focus here is thus on replicating your current home phone and handset setup as closely as possible, albeit via VoIP rather than an analogue landline. Happily once you get past the initial terminology barrier then it’s really not all that difficult, although some basic IT /  Networking knowledge does help (e.g. the ability to access your broadband router settings and make changes).

The Terminology Primer

Before we delve any deeper it’s probably a good idea to pause and build a basic understanding of the key terminology that you’re likely to come across. Alas this is rarely ever explained by VoIP providers, many of which adopt the usual approach of assuming that everybody knows what they’re talking about.

Luckily we can simplify this down to the basics.

Key VoIP Terms

VoIP – Voice-over-Internet Protocol
This broadly means the overall approach of making or receiving phone calls over the internet (i.e. encoding voice traffic into a digital signal / data). Some people may also try to over-simplify this by using terms such as IP telephony, internet telephony or voice over broadband, but it’s all still VoIP.

SIP – Session Initiation Protocol
This is one of the most common protocols for enabling a VoIP service and it can work on a peer-to-peer basis. Generally you’ll want to use a SIP supporting service, although there are also older protocols (e.g. H.323 or MGCP) and Cisco’s kit has their own proprietary one called SCCP.

SIP Trunking
This as an extension to SIP that enables you to increase your call capacity and the number of concurrent calls (it may also carry other media like video calls), which makes it ideal for businesses.

PBX (IP PBX) – Private Branch (Box) Exchange
This is essentially a private telephone exchange and is often spoken of alongside SIP Trunking since such services are generally business centric. In the past these were designed for use with the old PSTN analogue phone system but modern IP PBX’s can also be used with VoIP / SIP Trunking etc. A PBX is generally not something that residential users need to think about.

ATA – Analogue Telephone Adapter
A useful little piece of hardware (box) that enables you to use a traditional analogue or DECT phone handset over a VoIP system. One cable connects to your phone and the other to your network via an Ethernet (LAN) port. You can also buy dedicated VoIP Phones that have an ATA built-in (i.e. you connect the VoIP Phone directly to your router’s LAN port or via WiFi).

FXS / FXO Ports – Foreign Exchange Subscriber / Office
In simple terms this is a phone port (RJ11 size) for your old analogue or DECT phone handset, which you’ll often find on the back of VoIP equipped broadband routers and ATA adapters. In reality there’s a little more to it than that but for the purposes of this article this is all you need to know.

You’re also likely to come across plenty of other terms but those listed above are among the most important. Generally speaking most of the time when people talk about VoIP or SIP then they’re really just discussing the same service (i.e. the SIP protocol is widely used for delivering VoIP).

Connecting to VoIP

One of the best things about VoIP is that there’s usually a variety of different ways to both setup and access the service, although admittedly the caveat here is that too much choice can cause confusion. As such it’s often better to think of VoIP as being a very flexible communication service, which often enables you to access it however you choose and to even take it with you when travelling.

Continued over the page..