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Help – VoIP Minihowto

Besides the long speech, we will direct you to an outstanding forum www.voip-info.org, where you can find all necessary information.

Software & Hardware

To be able to play with PBX, you need to have SIP compliant phone. There are various different types:

Hardware VoIP phone – "box" looking almost identically as your normal PSTN phone, except its connection to the computer network.
ATA (Analogue Telephone Adapter) – device, connected between normal phone and computer network, converting your old PSTN phone into the new VoIP phone.
Software VoIP phone – application running on the computer and allows you to use the same sound card, phones (or speakers) and microphones.

HW VoIP phone and ATA prices start from about €35.
Choose one carefully and try out every device properly to be sure it corresponds with your needs.
Last but not least – an important advice: if you want to avoid problems, look at recommended devices.

Parameters needed for phone setup can be found here. Local specialities have to be resolved with a good friend Google and using your own brainpower.

SW versus HW phones

If you think about whether to use the SW or HW phone, we have for you a few notes:

SW phone is suitable for VoIP telephony evaluation, testing purposes and emergency use.
SW phones, although often offer more features, but in most cases these are easy to circumvent.
HW phones and ATAs are much more comfortable and better quality and for serious use they are irreplaceable.
If you need "free hands" during voice calls, use a HW phone and high-quality headset that can be attached to it.