Just wondering if any of you guys & girls out in the WWW, have came across a decent “Voip Cordless Phone” that can hook up directly with my Phonak hearing aids, I have tried researching, but most of the advertising is a little obscure, in the Bluetooth department, which is essentially what I am wanting, I have read that the Voip system’s (Voice over internet protocol) are crystal clear over fttp (fibre to the premises) I live in a rural area, and fttp is a bit of a novelty, with Pure Fibre is being installed imminently, all the new build fibre optic cables are I believe in situ, so they will be rolling out the system anytime, I would envisage, within the month, I might be connected? I went for the symmetrical service, 2gig upload & 2gig download, a massive improvement over my present 70mbps, approximately 28 times faster, and ping times under 10ms, and only £10 a month more than I am paying at present, fortunately the UK government pays for my install, via a £1500 voucher/grant, so my fttp, is installed for free, because I live in a rural area, the costs involved wouldn’t be economically viable, for any ISP… Please feel free to comment on any decent Voip phones out there… Or indeed the clarity of Voip phone calls over a full fibre line. Thank you in anticipation, cheers Kev
There may very well be VOIP phones that will connect to your Phonak aids via BT but I’m unaware of them. I do have VOIP however and can comment on a couple of things. 1)You should be able to use just about any cordless phone with your VOIP setup. 2) You will need some way to convert your internet into VOIP. Your internet provider may provide this or you may need to obtain VOIP service somewhere else. In the US I use OOMA. 3)Unless you are doing massive data downloads, there will be no advantage of having 2 gig service over 1 gig service or even 500 Mbps or slower. The reduced latency will be helpful. I only have 25 Mbps and it provides great VOIP service. I mention this because if you can get slower fiber service for less money, I’d take it.
In the world of Internet 3G-4G-5G (now is already 10G!), VOIP is getting very common. Everyone is using it and the Telco do not make much money out of phone calls using VOIP but charging the consumer using data plan - internet world …search search…gaming…song…etc etc. I change from 800 Mbps to 100Mbps internet speed, everything in the house, works fine…Youtube, Netflix, Internet & VOIP.
Coming to your question - VOIP Cordless Phone. In Asia, everyone is using VOIP (via mobile phone) to call each other every day only if you and the receiver (your friend) have the following Apps in their mobile phones:-
- WHAT APPS - “WA”
- LINE
- TELEGRAM
- OTHERS - some are not common in your country.
(Using the above Apps, you call anyone in the world using VOIP only if they share their phone number with you).
So you have to install WA in your phone and then you asked your friend to install WA in his phone - start talking via the HA’s. Your phone is connected via BT to the HA’s. You will hear the your friend voice. If your friend called you, your HA’s will have ringing sound and you answer by tapping or touch/swipe the phone.
Just a little practice and patience. Enjoy!
I asked my audiologist this very question a few weeks ago, but she was not aware of any.
We had fttp installed a couple of years ago by City Fibre and are with Vodafone. The installation was somewhat inept, it seemed to take an extremely large group (often standing around not doing much) an awful lot of visits over a period of about a month to complete it. We even had some underground tubing/conduit fitted about 8 years before in anticipation of needing it with a wire inside to pull any cable through. In the end my husband had to supervise to make sure that it was done correctly.
We used our old Panasonic cordless phones with the hub supplied and they worked fine - with the added feature of a voice announcing who is calling. The call quality is good, but do remember that in the event of a power cut they won’t work. Our daughters call our mobiles on WhatsApp and I can stream that into my hearing aids and the quality is great. Obviously with non family /friends the call often goes to the “landline”.
In summary, streaming a call via Bluetooth is definitely better and if a Bluetooth voip phone becomes available I would get one. I thought I had found one about 6 months ago, but it was not available in the UK.
Here in Switzerland I use Peoplefone, which claims to offer their services in 60 countries, for VOIP telephony. I could keep my old landline number and it has apps for my android phone, iPad and PC. Calls also run directly via my router, which serves a couple of DECT phones (for my wife). I typically make/answer phone calls on my iPad, which connects to my Phonaks over Bluetooth. Haven’t pressed an old phone to my ears in years.
Maybe a little OTT for some, but not for a “High Flyer” like you Kev.
Joke aside I don’t think what you are looking for is available. Maybe this one.
I am acutely aware 2gig full fibre is way over the top @MDB, but at around 33 pence per day extra, I will take it! And yeah the new ISP will provide a VoIP phone service, and port over my old landline number, the new router (Adtran 854-v6 Gateway Router) will have 2 designated voip telephone ports, it costs £5 per month for this phone service, to all landline & mobile phone calls within the UK, are part of this service at no extra cost, so essentially I can call any mobile number in the UK, for free, It is the clarity, that I seek! I go back to the early days of the internet, with the old 56k dialup modem, it was always a dream to get a “Fibre”gigabit service in my remote location, and now that dream, will become a reality, in truth if they had offered a 10gig symmetrical service, I would have taken it I need to stay with my new ISP for 2 years I believe, as they are building my new network, but after that, I can go to any ISP, and by that time, there will be much cheaper options, I was reading last night of a UK ISP offering a 3gig symmetrical service for £49 per month, or their 900mbps symmetrical for £25 per month, but prices will likely come down, as competition heats up? Cheers Kev
Great question!
I’m having issues with my cordless phone. I can’t understand callers at all.
DaveL
Toronto
Same here Dave, I struggle to hear mine ringing, and have to use loudspeaker to hear what the caller is saying. That being said I rarely use it.
Thank you all for your very kind suggestions @danka @Tealover @MDB @RobHooft & @BarryH I am in no great hurry to be very honest, I have a decent Geemarc DECT phone, it’s heavily amplified, it will do until I find something with Bluetooth, but perhaps, it’s not been invented yet? I will research more over the next couple of weeks, and see if I can find anything? I am in all truth getting a wee bit excited at the prospect of 2gig internet speed, especially where I live! I have CAT cables running everywhere on my present service, even to my workshop’s and outhouse/poolroom, I have a large garden, I can get 5g there via the mobile service, but my plan is to set up repeaters, to pick up my 2gig service. At some point in the future, I am planning a uTube channel, so I will be uploading large files on a regular basis, well that’s the plan, whether it will see fruition, is another thing, as I am extremely busy with various projects on the go! Cheers Kev
If you do find one, could you let us all know please. I think you’d get on well with my husband, he has electronics stuff everywhere and is currently trying to programme a chip😂
Not sure if this of interest, but Lebara do Voice over internet I beleive, they use your wifi for calls.
There is another deal for around £0.80 per months for 9 months I believe.
I called an old friend. Turns out he only uses his cell phone now. So he can Bluetooth to his hearing aids. He tuned 1,500 hp racing boat motors for 30 years! No hearing protection. Music to his ears.
A compromise. Speakerphone. But hold the receiver near my HA mic’s.
We recently discovered the Groundwire app from Accrobits for iphone. I did not check to see if it is available on Android.
What it does: it allows you to connect to your VOIP account and use any cell and/or tablet to answer calls and make calls over the IP phone line as long as the cell/tablet has an internet connection.
So if you are satisfied with the bluetooth connection between you HA and your cell, this app could be a solution.
Your landline provider may offer free call forwarding. If it does you can send to your mobile and use its Bluetooth.
BT calls it Call Diversion
Thank you for this information @Lou1582, it would seem the Groundwire App, is updated on a regular basis, and gets some glowing reviews… Cheers Kev
Yeah, I just checked, Highland Broadband does do call forwarding via their VoIP service, so all should be fine, thank you… Cheers Kev
Now hitting some excellent speeds, as the full fibre connection settles, although the router supplied via the ISP is flawed, the WAN port is 2.5gbps, but the LAN ports are only 1gbps, so even when you hardwire a connection, the maximum you can get is 1gbps! I just installed a Mesh system, A “TP Link Deco XE75 Pro” I am now hitting 900mbps Up & Download via WiFi, the Deco is a “Backhaul”, so one Deco Router has to be hardwired via a LAN cable, the CAT cable supplied wasn’t fast enough, so I stuck a CAT 8 on it, and it jumped 200mbps Delighted! I stuck an old Dect phone on the VoIP connection, I can’t find my amplified one, it works but only just, so I ordered this one (Panasonic KX-TGM420) via Amazon, see image below, I did a little research, and this Dect phone comes highly recommended for HOH, we shall see once it arrives… Cheers Kev
Flying Kev, makes my 150mbps look sad
Yeah Barry, it wasn’t always so… I go back to the old 56k Modem days, when you dialled up, went and made a cup of tea, and you were in, hopefully when you got back? I honestly never envisaged the day, that in a remote location, here in the Scottish Highlands, we would have 2gig full fibre, but here we are, almost 30 years later from the 56k, 5ms ping, 2k Up symmetrical… Happy days!!! I gave the fibre Engineer a hand, during the install, he was on his own, and I was highly interested in what he was doing… And nowadays, it’s virtually all plug and play, there isn’t any splicing fibre involved now, in an install, the technology is absolutely amazing, I got a piece of fibre cable, it’s minuscule, about 1.5mm in thickness, and inside that, there are 4 cores, so it’s future proof! 150mbps, is a decent speed, perhaps 6 years ago, my old ADSL line, gave me 2 to 3mbps, then we moved up to fttc, around 74mbps Download, and 18mbps upload, but yeah, I am flying now! 900mbps symmetrical via WiFi will do me, thank you very much Cheers Kev
Edit; That’s my WiFi now, since I installed that CAT 8 cable…