Sonic.net

Hi Dane, Still curious if you can use your POTS phones with FTTN or will need new phones? If you need new phones how will that work.

Mike wrote:Hi Dane, Still curious if you can use your POTS phones with FTTN or will need new phones? If you need new phones how will that work.

Yep, the VoIP equipment outputs a POTS Jack, which you'll plug your phone into. Generally you'd plug your wireless base station into this.

Cool. So sounds like I could plug in the POTS wiring from my house into the VOIP equipment.

Does the equipment support just 1 VOIP line (2 wire) or 2 VOIP lines (4 wire).

Just one.

dane wrote:

Guest wrote:I have a few questions on the voice service on Fusion FTTN:

1) As the service is VoIP, will it be able to work with fax machines?
2) How much bandwidth does the VoIP take from the Fusion FTTN internet connection?

Fax machines may work, or may not. VoIP and fax often work fine, but sometimes they do not. Same goes for alarm systems. You may choose to retain a copper landline for these if they do not work for you on the VoIP service.

When a call is in session, the VoIP connection uses less than 50kbps.

Just wanted to add a data point. My Brother IntelliFAX 2820 always worked fine for sending faxes out on the ADSL copper line Fusion service. After switching to FTTN (with vastly improved speed by the way) the faxing no longer works in automatic mode. It would dial out, the other side would pick up, a lot of "squeaking" but no communication established, then time out. However I did find a workaround:
Use off-hook or manual mode on the fax machine, i.e. dial the number from the fax machine as if wanting to make a phone call with the fax machine. Once the other side picks up, then add the fax page to the feeder and press the start button. Somehow the line quality when starting as a voice call is better to make the communication work.
The setup is:
ATT Uverse gateway [Pace model 5031NV-030] directly to Sonic supplied SIP to analog converter box [Grandstream HT701] and from that box with phone cable directly into the fax machine [Brother IntelliFax 2820].

Maybe this can help others trying to send a fax over VoIP / SIP line. It's worth a try.

ulfn wrote:

dane wrote:

Guest wrote:I have a few questions on the voice service on Fusion FTTN:

1) As the service is VoIP, will it be able to work with fax machines?
2) How much bandwidth does the VoIP take from the Fusion FTTN internet connection?

Fax machines may work, or may not. VoIP and fax often work fine, but sometimes they do not. Same goes for alarm systems. You may choose to retain a copper landline for these if they do not work for you on the VoIP service.

When a call is in session, the VoIP connection uses less than 50kbps.

Just wanted to add a data point. My Brother IntelliFAX 2820 always worked fine for sending faxes out on the ADSL copper line Fusion service. After switching to FTTN (with vastly improved speed by the way) the faxing no longer works in automatic mode. It would dial out, the other side would pick up, a lot of "squeaking" but no communication established, then time out. However I did find a workaround:
Use off-hook or manual mode on the fax machine, i.e. dial the number from the fax machine as if wanting to make a phone call with the fax machine. Once the other side picks up, then add the fax page to the feeder and press the start button. Somehow the line quality when starting as a voice call is better to make the communication work.
The setup is:
ATT Uverse gateway [Pace model 5031NV-030] directly to Sonic supplied SIP to analog converter box [Grandstream HT701] and from that box with phone cable directly into the fax machine [Brother IntelliFax 2820].

Maybe this can help others trying to send a fax over VoIP / SIP line. It's worth a try.

Thank you so much for the feedback/suggestion, I'm sure that information will be of great help to those who are having similar issues with their fax machines.

Thanks for your great info in this thread Dane!

Similar to what allenwoo said about the graphic explaining the various services, I'm curious about the availability of FTTN for those too distant from the CO for VDSL but not as far as 10k+ ft. I'm about 6k feet from our nearest CO in Berkeley, and multiple neighbors who are Sonic subscribers say their standard DSL speeds are about 5 or 6 Mb/s. Even if I doubled this up to, say, 12Mb/s, it's not fast enough for my needs. I'm not currently a Sonic subscriber, but would be if I knew I could get 30 or 40Mb/s using FTTN x 2. Can I request FTTN even though I'm only at 6k ft? And is there any way to know in advance if FTTN is available at my address? It doesn't appear as an option when I enter my address on Sonic's site, and I've gotten confusing answers about this when I've called Sonic's sales folks. (FWIW, I'm on the 2400 block of Jefferson Ave.)

David wrote:Thanks for your great info in this thread Dane!

Similar to what allenwoo said about the graphic explaining the various services, I'm curious about the availability of FTTN for those too distant from the CO for VDSL but not as far as 10k+ ft. I'm about 6k feet from our nearest CO in Berkeley, and multiple neighbors who are Sonic subscribers say their standard DSL speeds are about 5 or 6 Mb/s. Even if I doubled this up to, say, 12Mb/s, it's not fast enough for my needs. I'm not currently a Sonic subscriber, but would be if I knew I could get 30 or 40Mb/s using FTTN x 2. Can I request FTTN even though I'm only at 6k ft? And is there any way to know in advance if FTTN is available at my address? It doesn't appear as an option when I enter my address on Sonic's site, and I've gotten confusing answers about this when I've called Sonic's sales folks. (FWIW, I'm on the 2400 block of Jefferson Ave.)

go to ATT website and see if your location qualifies for Uverse as FTTN is resold ATT uverse service . If you qualify you can make a call to Sonic and see if they are willing to switch you over

David,

We only provide FTTN service where we cannot provide our Fusion service. So when you qualify your address on our site, whatever product is offered is the only product available. I took at look at a handful of live circuits on the 2400 block of Jefferson and customers are seeing between 7Mbps and 9Mbps. So on a bonded circuit I'd expect someone to see 13Mbps - 18Mbps. Anyway, I'm not trying to sell you on Fusion just providing a bit of information that I hope may be helpful to you.

Note that DSL Extreme also resells FTTN Uverse. Be aware that their listed price is for a year and then it goes up by about $15. They don't bundle VOIP by default but have recently merged with a VOIP provider so can set you up in needed.

I used 2417 Jefferson Av, on their tool and it shows all the normal options as being available: 12/18/24/45.