looking for a recent trusted review of available analogue telephone adapters.
I think my landline provider is going to discontinue my wired service soon. While a search lists many websites with "evaluations", I don't know which are impartial and which are promote one brand or another. I'd also like a table of features, I'm not sure if everything I would want is automatic. what I think i want, but maybe ignorance means i should require something else, or one of these things is foolish --battery backup --want to connect 2 phones, a minimal old style just to always be there --my current cordless base station for which I have 7 more remotes working off the same base. --ability to connect to the hotspot from my mobile if/when the wired internet access fails. --or tethered from my mobile? is it possible to use tethering from my phone to replace the entire wired network at home? Sorry, I'm ignorant, and is there an auto switch to go between my wired internet router and my home switch to make the crossover automatic in both directions? A google search says only the router can switch between one WAN and another, but it seems to me some smart person could make a minimal switch with that capability, since my router belongs to the cable company and I doubt they would want to make a failover to somebody else's internet as a source. If they do, I'm sure they'd charge an extra $100 per month even if i never did it. Almost certainly more change than I would be ready to make, but is there an open source switch setup to which some smart person has added a heartbeat monitor on the primary wan and will swtich to a second if the primary is down for some interval? Looks like I'll probably have to be happy with manually switching, as in... --Comcast cable internet goes down and stays down. --unplug it from my primary switch --have a Linux computer with bridging software idling to a USB port (or second Ethernet port?) --enable tethering on my phone and connect it to the bridging computer I assume the bridging software handles dynamic IP addresses, or is that actually built into the tethering on the phone? Carey
How many people are there in your household who would use the landline? Most people have switched to personal mobile phones. They are pretty good. But some of uss oldsters resist.
From: CAREY SCHUG via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
I think my landline provider is going to discontinue my wired service soon.
Mine did, without announcement: someone (not them) cut the trunk and the phone company refused to fix it.
While a search lists many websites with "evaluations", I don't know which are impartial and which are promote one brand or another.
There are a bunch of choices. You may want an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_telephone_adapter> You may want to ensure privacy. That depends on the ATA encrypting and your ITSP (Internet Telephone Service Provider) doing so too. That's enough to emulate POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).
I'd also like a table of features, I'm not sure if everything I would want is automatic.
They give you what's easy, not what you want or need.
what I think i want, but maybe ignorance means i should require something else, or one of these things is foolish
--battery backup
Up to you. I mean UPS to you :-}
--want to connect 2 phones, a minimal old style just to always be there
Western/Northern Electric 500 sets won't work: no support for pulse dial (AFAIK) Many ATA's support two lines. But you only asked for two handsets, which is only requires on line because you can put multiple handsets on a single line.
--my current cordless base station for which I have 7 more remotes working off the same base.
Should work with an ATA.
--ability to connect to the hotspot from my mobile if/when the wired internet access fails.
Most ATA's that I'm familiar with (from more than a decade ago) were wired ethernet.
--or tethered from my mobile?
Some ATAs may work with WiFi. I don't know.
is it possible to use tethering from my phone to replace the entire wired network at home? Sorry, I'm ignorant, and is there an auto switch to go between my wired internet router and my home switch to make the crossover automatic in both directions?
ATA's are usually dumb. You probably need a router or something that behaves like a router.
A google search says only the router can switch between one WAN and another, but it seems to me some smart person could make a minimal switch with that capability, since my router belongs to the cable company and I doubt they would want to make a failover to somebody else's internet as a source. If they do, I'm sure they'd charge an extra $100 per month even if i never did it.
Yeah. You need a router with failover capabilities.
Almost certainly more change than I would be ready to make, but is there an open source switch setup to which some smart person has added a heartbeat monitor on the primary wan and will swtich to a second if the primary is down for some interval?
Go crazy: set up an Asterisk (or successor) setup!
Looks like I'll probably have to be happy with manually switching, as in... --Comcast cable internet goes down and stays down. --unplug it from my primary switch --have a Linux computer with bridging software idling to a USB port (or second Ethernet port?) --enable tethering on my phone and connect it to the bridging computer
I assume the bridging software handles dynamic IP addresses, or is that actually built into the tethering on the phone?
Everyone is used to consumers having dynamic addresses. If the consumer's software acts like a server (as a phone does), there are things like STUN to get through NAT. The ATA's I used (very plain and mainstream) supported STUN on their own.
ok, to clarify. 1. I am looking for a "consumers' reports" review of commercial ATAs that I can buy online, plug in and use. 2. plus understanding of nuances I don't know to ask about. 3. an ATA with current or future options 4. or sufficient benefits I should do something harder harder would be building an open source router or switch to replace the existing ones I have. First, thanks for the info about STUN, I hadn't thought of that, I guess assuming it was built into whatever service I buy for with the ATA. Does DYNDNS stil exist? Is there a combined STUN/DYNDNS? if I pay for the STUN service with the IP phone number do i get DYNDNS thrown in for free? or only with some services? I had it for a while when somebody was telnetting into one of my sun systems to test it against the emulator he was writing (he actually had access to one system connected into another so he could reboot the second system). So much lack of knowledge on my part.... I should have repeated in the body that I want a list of ATAs I can buy, as the title was supposed to indicate. With a little more knowledge...next ai query gives: "Most VoIP providers do not work with all commercial ATAs," so, probably my question should be "which ITSP/VOIP provider is recommended", for which I need to ask on a USA forum as that is where i live. I tend to ask tech questions here, experience has been better answers, sooner. I remember a discussion on VOIP providers, I will look through archives first. much as I don't want to give comcast any more business, maybe I should just purchase VOIP from them, the existing router wall handle the ATA, and has room for a battery backup. I'm still living in the past when I was aware of comcast going down for at least 15 minutes more than once a month average (maybe they had a reset process that took it down, the short outages were between 1 and 4 am). At this time comcast may be more uptime than POTS, at least the downtimes are shorter. But to answer some details: currently my base station phone is next to my computer so my ATA can run off the computers UPS, but I may want to move the base station phone as it is now at one extreme end of my house and maybe to work outside at the other end I'll need to move the base station, so adding a battery would mean a compete big UPS just for the ATA. I'd have to run a POTS wire from where the router is to somewhere i'd want a phone, and that is not where I'd want the emergency phone to be, so I'd need UPS for that or to run a new phone wire to my office. And I do "want" to tether (usb cable) to my phone not wifi as i'm old school and still afraid of wifi. I know they say it is safe now, but...so, maybe i'll have to give up on that. This oldster ONLY uses the landline for talking, except for emergencies. I do not carry it with me at home, if I did I'd lose it 16 times per week. Carey
On 12/10/2025 12:13 PM CST D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org> wrote:
How many people are there in your household who would use the landline?
Most people have switched to personal mobile phones. They are pretty good. But some of uss oldsters resist.
From: CAREY SCHUG via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
I think my landline provider is going to discontinue my wired service soon.
Mine did, without announcement: someone (not them) cut the trunk and the phone company refused to fix it.
While a search lists many websites with "evaluations", I don't know which are impartial and which are promote one brand or another.
There are a bunch of choices.
You may want an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_telephone_adapter>
You may want to ensure privacy. That depends on the ATA encrypting and your ITSP (Internet Telephone Service Provider) doing so too.
That's enough to emulate POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).
I'd also like a table of features, I'm not sure if everything I would want is automatic.
They give you what's easy, not what you want or need.
what I think i want, but maybe ignorance means i should require something else, or one of these things is foolish
--battery backup
Up to you. I mean UPS to you :-}
--want to connect 2 phones, a minimal old style just to always be there
Western/Northern Electric 500 sets won't work: no support for pulse dial (AFAIK)
Many ATA's support two lines. But you only asked for two handsets, which is only requires on line because you can put multiple handsets on a single line.
--my current cordless base station for which I have 7 more remotes working off the same base.
Should work with an ATA.
--ability to connect to the hotspot from my mobile if/when the wired internet access fails.
Most ATA's that I'm familiar with (from more than a decade ago) were wired ethernet.
I've been chatting with simple AI (the thing the is preplacing traditional internet keyword only searches). It says I can: --------------------------- Keep your ISP router as-is. Add a small open-source router (like a used PC or device running OpenWrt or pfSense) after the ISP router. Connect a second WAN (e.g., 4G/LTE modem) to this router. Configure dual WAN failover on it. Connect it after your ISP router. Assign it a static IP in your existing network range (e.g., 192.168.1.2). Disable its DHCP server — let your ISP router handle IP assignments. Enable dual WAN failover on the open-source router without interfering with your current network. This way, it manages failover without creating a second DHCP server. Your open-source router (e.g., OpenWrt, pfSense) automatically detects when your primary ISP comes back by continuously monitoring the connection. It typically uses: Ping tests (e.g., to 8.8.8.8 or your ISP’s gateway) DNS queries (e.g., to google.com) If the primary WAN fails these checks (e.g., no response for 10–12 consecutive attempts), failover occurs. When the router detects the primary is responsive again (e.g., 4+ successful checks in a row), it automatically switches traffic back — a process called failback. -------------------- I understand the words, and they make sense, but sounds rube goldberg-ish. if my ethernet provider goes down, its router will continue issusing DHCP but nothing else. I would fear they would shutdown issuing ip address leases that on principle that if they are not active the world does not exist, but hopefuly they realize they have to continue so my devices can talk to each other, like to printers. I still have to figure out how to get the failover wan out of my phone, using the same subnet. OK, I asked ai again. Here I understand the words, but absolutely would have spend a long time going over them, maybe more queries, to understand how they fit together. NB 20 (?) years ago I set up and ran a linux based router, planning to set up a DMZ, but never did. Things were more primitive back then I suspect, and if I had a smartphone, it had internet data measured in megabytes. --------------------------- Yes, pfSense can use USB tethering from your 5G phone as a backup WAN, but it requires manual setup. How It Works: Plug your phone into a USB port on the pfSense device. Enable USB tethering on your phone. pfSense (based on FreeBSD) recognizes the phone as a USB Ethernet device (e.g., ue0 interface). Assign the interface in pfSense, set it to DHCP, and add it as a gateway. Configuration Steps: Connect & Enable Tethering: Plug in your phone and turn on USB tethering. Load Driver (if needed): Run kldload if_ipheth in the shell to load iPhone support (Android often works automatically). Assign Interface: In pfSense web UI > Interfaces > Assignments, find the new ue0 interface and assign it. Configure Interface: Name it (e.g., "iPhone"), enable it, set IPv4 to DHCP. Add Gateway: Go to System > Routing, create a gateway for the new interface. Set Up Failover: In Gateways > Groups, create a group (e.g., Tier 1: primary WAN, Tier 2: iPhone) with "packet loss or high latency" trigger. Outbound
On 2025-12-10 17:15, CAREY SCHUG via Talk wrote:
ok, to clarify.
1. I am looking for a "consumers' reports" review of commercial ATAs that I can buy online, plug in and use. 2. plus understanding of nuances I don't know to ask about. 3. an ATA with current or future options 4. or sufficient benefits I should do something harder
An ATA in the $50-100 range will likely be enough. You want to make sure it will do encryption. I believe they are SRTP and STLS but I am saying that without looking. The ATAs that I have seen have more features than I will llikely ever use.
harder would be building an open source router or switch to replace the existing ones I have.
That is not all that hard. If your OK with OpenWRT you can buy one of a number of compatible products and re-flash the firmware or get an OpenWRT hardware product that is pre-configured. Another choice is to get an old PC or small format computer like a Pi or NUC box. and put one of the dozen or so opensource router/firewall projects out there on it.
First, thanks for the info about STUN, I hadn't thought of that, I guess assuming it was built into whatever service I buy for with the ATA. Does DYNDNS stil exist? Is there a combined STUN/DYNDNS? if I pay for the STUN service with the IP phone number do i get DYNDNS thrown in for free? or only with some services? I had it for a while when somebody was telnetting into one of my sun systems to test it against the emulator he was writing (he actually had access to one system connected into another so he could reboot the second system). So much lack of knowledge on my part....
I should have repeated in the body that I want a list of ATAs I can buy, as the title was supposed to indicate.
With a little more knowledge...next ai query gives: "Most VoIP providers do not work with all commercial ATAs,"
The more important question would be "what ATA works with all VOIP providers"? If you keep to the popular brands like linksys and grandstream you will likely be ok.
so, probably my question should be "which ITSP/VOIP provider is recommended", for which I need to ask on a USA forum as that is where i live. I tend to ask tech questions here, experience has been better answers, sooner. I remember a discussion on VOIP providers, I will look through archives first.
I would plug VOIP.ms. They can provide phone numbers in a large number of countries and areas. They can also port your number if it is in a supported region. I believe they are out of Montreal. If I spent $200/year on my services I would be surprised. -- Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 Netvel Inc. || home: (905)513-7688 alvin@netvel.net ||
I do not want to hijack a thread, but I have a question for comparison? Folks might recall that I require my analog landline for medical reasons..and teksavy after agreeing to install did not do so, because of bell contractors. Still at the cCTS in fact. Because my cell phone situation also became a problem due to the 3g network stuff, I located a kind of middle ground for my landline, so I would have at least one functional safe option. ZTE makes a hub that allows you to insert a Mobile sim card, mine is PC mobile, but connect a standard analog phone. It has two jacks in the back for this. While some of the ZTE features do not seem to work..wish I could change the hot keys smiles, the sound quality for me is honestly tear worthy with the clarity. my preferred phone sounds great for others, I laugh when someone starts asking how to get a phone that sounds this good. My question though is how does my solution differ from what is being sought? the hub is 4g compatible, I got it on eBay for $32, and it came from the states. Kare On Wed, 10 Dec 2025, D. Hugh Redelmeier via Talk wrote:
How many people are there in your household who would use the landline?
Most people have switched to personal mobile phones. They are pretty good. But some of uss oldsters resist.
From: CAREY SCHUG via Talk <talk@lists.gtalug.org>
I think my landline provider is going to discontinue my wired service soon.
Mine did, without announcement: someone (not them) cut the trunk and the phone company refused to fix it.
While a search lists many websites with "evaluations", I don't know which are impartial and which are promote one brand or another.
There are a bunch of choices.
You may want an ATA (Analog Telephone Adapter) <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Analog_telephone_adapter>
You may want to ensure privacy. That depends on the ATA encrypting and your ITSP (Internet Telephone Service Provider) doing so too.
That's enough to emulate POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service).
I'd also like a table of features, I'm not sure if everything I would want is automatic.
They give you what's easy, not what you want or need.
what I think i want, but maybe ignorance means i should require something else, or one of these things is foolish
--battery backup
Up to you. I mean UPS to you :-}
--want to connect 2 phones, a minimal old style just to always be there
Western/Northern Electric 500 sets won't work: no support for pulse dial (AFAIK)
Many ATA's support two lines. But you only asked for two handsets, which is only requires on line because you can put multiple handsets on a single line.
--my current cordless base station for which I have 7 more remotes working off the same base.
Should work with an ATA.
--ability to connect to the hotspot from my mobile if/when the wired internet access fails.
Most ATA's that I'm familiar with (from more than a decade ago) were wired ethernet.
--or tethered from my mobile?
Some ATAs may work with WiFi. I don't know.
is it possible to use tethering from my phone to replace the entire wired network at home? Sorry, I'm ignorant, and is there an auto switch to go between my wired internet router and my home switch to make the crossover automatic in both directions?
ATA's are usually dumb. You probably need a router or something that behaves like a router.
A google search says only the router can switch between one WAN and another, but it seems to me some smart person could make a minimal switch with that capability, since my router belongs to the cable company and I doubt they would want to make a failover to somebody else's internet as a source. If they do, I'm sure they'd charge an extra $100 per month even if i never did it.
Yeah. You need a router with failover capabilities.
Almost certainly more change than I would be ready to make, but is there an open source switch setup to which some smart person has added a heartbeat monitor on the primary wan and will swtich to a second if the primary is down for some interval?
Go crazy: set up an Asterisk (or successor) setup!
Looks like I'll probably have to be happy with manually switching, as in... --Comcast cable internet goes down and stays down. --unplug it from my primary switch --have a Linux computer with bridging software idling to a USB port (or second Ethernet port?) --enable tethering on my phone and connect it to the bridging computer
I assume the bridging software handles dynamic IP addresses, or is that actually built into the tethering on the phone?
Everyone is used to consumers having dynamic addresses.
If the consumer's software acts like a server (as a phone does), there are things like STUN to get through NAT.
The ATA's I used (very plain and mainstream) supported STUN on their own. ------------------------------------ Description: GTALUG Talk Unsubscribe via Talk-unsubscribe@lists.gtalug.org Start a new thread: talk@lists.gtalug.org This message archived at https://lists.gtalug.org/archives/list/talk@lists.gtalug.org/message/74Y5UTZ...
On 2025-12-10 11:59, CAREY SCHUG via Talk wrote:
I think my landline provider is going to discontinue my wired service soon.
While a search lists many websites with "evaluations", I don't know which are impartial and which are promote one brand or another.
I'd also like a table of features, I'm not sure if everything I would want is automatic.
what I think i want, but maybe ignorance means i should require something else, or one of these things is foolish
There are a number of ATAs on the market. They start at about $50 and go up to stupid expensive. I used a linksys/Cisco ATA for years but it started acting flaky. I would have replaced it with the same model but for the fact that the current version on sale did not seem to support encrypted VIOP services. I replaced it with a Grandstream HT-812 which supports 2 lines and would run encrypted. It is working just fine with my 5 handset phone/voice-mail system that we have had for something like 10 years.
--battery backup
You will likely get the best bang for the buck by using a cheap UPS.
--want to connect 2 phones, a minimal old style just to always be there
The default seems to be 2 lines in ATAs I am sure there are some single line units out there.
--my current cordless base station for which I have 7 more remotes working off the same base.
My setup has 5 from an old phone/answering-machine. Not sure about your system but ours will go away when the power dies so that may also need a UPS.
--ability to connect to the hotspot from my mobile if/when the wired internet access fails.
The cheapies are hard wired.
--or tethered from my mobile?
is it possible to use tethering from my phone to replace the entire wired network at home? Sorry, I'm ignorant, and is there an auto switch to go between my wired internet router and my home switch to make the crossover automatic in both directions?
A google search says only the router can switch between one WAN and another, but it seems to me some smart person could make a minimal switch with that capability, since my router belongs to the cable company and I doubt they would want to make a failover to somebody else's internet as a source. If they do, I'm sure they'd charge an extra $100 per month even if i never did it.
Almost certainly more change than I would be ready to make, but is there an open source switch setup to which some smart person has added a heartbeat monitor on the primary wan and will swtich to a second if the primary is down for some interval?
Looks like I'll probably have to be happy with manually switching, as in... --Comcast cable internet goes down and stays down. --unplug it from my primary switch --have a Linux computer with bridging software idling to a USB port (or second Ethernet port?) --enable tethering on my phone and connect it to the bridging computer
I assume the bridging software handles dynamic IP addresses, or is that actually built into the tethering on the phone?
The short answer is that you can setup a complex failover. I use to use Sophos firewalls and they had a way to setup alternate failover WAN links. Now I use OpenWRT which likely can do the same thing but is not nearly as nicely put together as a product as the Sophos firewalls were. On my phone systems I have a ring group setup where when my home phone is called my home phone rings, my cottage phone rings, and the VOIP client on my cell phone rings. A number of times I have picked up a call to my home number from my cell phone while on the road.
Carey
-- Alvin Starr || land: (647)478-6285 Netvel Inc. || home: (905)513-7688 alvin@netvel.net ||
participants (4)
-
Alvin Starr -
CAREY SCHUG -
D. Hugh Redelmeier -
Karen Lewellen