CCNA Voice Lab... Need dial tone...

I dropped all the phone lines in my house about 2 years ago in leui of cell phones. We also finally got DSL - without a phone line - so I at least now have something better than satellite internet that I had been using for years.

I'm now, of course, studying for the CCNA-Voice and I've got most of the equipment (routers, switches, etc) and I'm going to pick up some fxo/fxs cards to play with... I wish I could afford some aim/cue stuff... -= sheesh =-

Okay, I know, I'm long-winded...

As of now, I don't have a phone line with dial tone to plug into the fxo ports to play with...

Q) Do I really need to have a phone line ordered through Verizon (my local carrier for $21/m) or can I get a dial-tone through someone such as Vonage for my fxo testing?

Assuming that Vonage is okay (they have a $10/m-200min plan), would I be able to use that to connect to remote routers at another location? I guess I'm a newbie so bear with me... it seems that if I did that, I would be doing compression with dialtone over top of voip on my dsl.

Something is telling me that it's why too much overhead...

Thanks for your time and feedback.
-paul

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peanutnoggin

I think most will agree that you can configure your own "PBX" to test the FXO dial functions. If you want to be able to dial local numbers, than I'm not sure if you can use vonage without a bit of leg work. I'd be interested to see others response. I know some folks have used a service called Sipgate to perform some actual testing. Sipgate offers a free 30-day trial. You may want to look into that before you spend unnecessary money on vonage. HTH.

-Peanut

chmorin

peanutnoggin wrote: »

I think most will agree that you can configure your own "PBX" to test the FXO dial functions. If you want to be able to dial local numbers, than I'm not sure if you can use vonage without a bit of leg work. I'd be interested to see others response. I know some folks have used a service called Sipgate to perform some actual testing. Sipgate offers a free 30-day trial. You may want to look into that before you spend unnecessary money on vonage. HTH.

-Peanut

This is pretty much exactly what I would suggest as well. Grab a cheap Voice Gateway off of ebay and some FXS and FXO ports and you can configure the gateway to simulate a PSTN, you could also get a T1 card to simulate that connection as well. If you find you really want access to the real PSTN, Sipgate offers some good services for cheap, and even a free package.

ptlinva

Excellent... I've got CME, my Cisco phones, and even my analog phones working now with each other and i'm able to dial out via my fxo port through the pstn.

Now I wanted to try a VoIP solution and went to check out sipgate.com but they aren't accepting any new customers. It seems that they've temporarily ran out of numbers.

Any other suggestions/recommendations?

Thanks!
-paul

hermeszdata

ptlinva wrote: »

Excellent... I've got CME, my Cisco phones, and even my analog phones working now with each other and i'm able to dial out via my fxo port through the pstn.

Now I wanted to try a VoIP solution and went to check out sipgate.com but they aren't accepting any new customers. It seems that they've temporarily ran out of numbers.

Any other suggestions/recommendations?

Thanks!
-paul

Whether you are using a normal POTS line, Vonage, or Digital Voice provided by a cable provider, the process of making calls, local, national or international is still the same.

I run two Magic Jacks (seperate PCs) to provide POTS connectivity and have been using them for over a year (I began running VoIP in my home/office January 2010). Because 98% of my incoming and outgoing calls are via cell, MJ is an excellent choice. I will probably add Vonage with their "Unlimited International Plan" because MJ changed their policy and now ALL international calls have to go directly through them and their rates are a bit pricy compared to the Pre-Paid plan my wife (Hungarian) has been using for the past 6 years. She averages ~ $30/mo with her calls to UK, Panama, Hungaria, Romania, Australia, etc. (She is known internationally for her art ...LOL)

To do this, you simply need an VIC-2FXO on the router to connect to the MJ and approiate dial peers.