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VoIP
For Multiple Phones
By Jack Spirko
 I get
emails just about weekly that go something like
this, "I just ordered Broadband phone
service from broadbandphoneservices.com and it is working great. I
have a question though, how can I use VoIP for multiple
phones in my house. I want a phone in my sitting room,
my game room and one in the living room? How do I do
this and please understand I am not a techy at all"?
The
most simple is to just use a cordless phone. This
works great for many people indeed I do it myself with the
VoIP based phone I keep in my home office.
Adding a line for only 19.95 from Packet8 was a simple
solution for me when I work out of my home and want to keep
business calls off my private line. All I did was get a
simple cordless phone, plug it into my Packet8 Adapter Box
and now I can take my phone anywhere in the house.
For
a single person with one simple objective this is a great
solution but it does have some limitations. For
instance if I go into another room I have to take my hand
set with me and if left over night off of the base I end up
with a dead battery. Yet for me as the only user and a
responsible user (unlike most teen age kids which many of
our customer share a home with) it works fine for my need.
I hear you though what you are looking to do
is have one phone say downstairs and one up stairs and
perhaps one in the kitchen.
Well
there is simple & very low tech way to accomplish this.
All you need to purchase is a cordless phone with
multiple handsets and like magic you end up with VoIP for multiple phones. These cordless sets are generally
well under 75 dollars, simple to set up and
available just at just about any store that sells
telephones.
 Just a few days ago at Cosco I saw a
cordless phone set with four handsets for $79.99. All you do with this type of phone set is
plug in the base unit to your broadband
phone adapter. You then put the extra handsets with
their chargers at any location you want them in your
home. They communicate with the base unit and when
someone calls you, you can answer at any location or you can pick
up any of them to make a call.
They also offer a real
advantage over conventional phones in that they only require
power at the locations of the handsets so you can put your
handsets anyplace you have an electrical plug and not worry
about a phone jack at all. There are just a few things to be
aware of in regard to multi handset cordless phones so I would like to provide a few words of
advice about selecting one for this type of use.
First if you have a wireless router in your
house or plan to ever even some day possibly putting in a
wireless network for computers in your home then make sure you buy a
cordless set that operates at 5.8GHz (it will be printed on
the phone and the box it comes in). The reason for
this caution is that some wireless
network equipment operates at 2.4GHz as do some cordless
phone set and if you put a
cordless phone in your home at the same frequency you will
often have interference between your wireless network and your
phone.
Second
is if you are buying a multi hand set cordless phone get as many
extra handsets as you need right away, in
fact if you really should just buy one more then you
need. Why you ask? Well, consider when
you are purchasing a commodity product like a mass produced
cordless phone that the Coscos, Megamarts and Circuit Cities
of the world sell, you have no way of knowing just how long that
set is going to stay in production. Anything you find on a department store shelf
in the electronics world will constantly be replaced with new versions as
manufactures strive to cut costs and provide better
delivery. So when you
buy a particular cordless set today and decide next year you want to
expand it, there is a pretty good likelihood that your model will be
out of production.
 Other then that just buy the set that
you like best. Many of them come with answering
machines but of course you won't need one since just about
any IP Provider worth having gives away free
voice mail so don't pay extra for that feature. Take a
look at what is available and get the set that you like
best, make sure it is a 5.8GHz set then just take it home, plug it in and in
just a few minutes you can have your VoIP phone line in
every room of your home.
If you happen to still be
looking for a broadband phone provider just visit our compare
VoIP plans page on this website to see a comparison of
the top providers available today and you to can have VoIP
for multiple phones.
- Jack Spirko
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