Author Topic: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?  (Read 2442 times)

slope

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Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« on: 03 December, 2019, 05:20:21 pm »
Having had a donkeys' year old ~£30 BT single handset 'Studio Plus' for well 'donks/yonks' - it's seen way better days with sticky buttons to say the least.

I tried a brand ne new Panansonic thing the other day - it was just as disappointing - light and plasticky, almoSt identical + the brand new sticky buttons and poor quality answer machine recordings.

Perhaps mobile phones' weight has given us a false sense of 'quality'?

Any recommendations for a simple one handset, with non distorted answer machine messages, deffo NO ORANGE numeral screens - improved quality after 10 years ago (which the new Panansonic particularly failed)?

It's hardly ever used - and Indian/Asian call centres selling electricity price comparisons always sound shit anyway

Just want something decent quality when I can be bothered to phone UK friends or complain to John Lewis et al about their uselesness and hear them clearly?

I bet some of you know and can help  :)

Ta in advance  :thumbsup:




Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #1 on: 03 December, 2019, 06:07:45 pm »
Unless I'm mistaken, you can buy-in an answering service from BT.
On another level, talking to machines is generally a bad idea.
It all started with a red traffic light, and a driver obeying it and stopping the car.
Skynet is just around the corner......

Kim

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Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #2 on: 03 December, 2019, 06:10:21 pm »
Yes, the problem with an answering machine is that people might leave messages on it.  And then you'd have to phone them.  Better to disconnect the ringer entirely.

My only suggestion is to avoid anything wireless.  They all sound shit.

Feanor

  • It's mostly downhill from here.
Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #3 on: 03 December, 2019, 06:29:08 pm »
<Peers over at Cisco IP phone, who's Message Waiting Indicator light is glowing brightly red, and has been doing so for months>

Hmm, time to log into the Asterisk box and rm -rf all of that.

Kim

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Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #4 on: 03 December, 2019, 06:40:59 pm »
This is more or less my approach, because IP phones sound better than the landline, and because you can send the telespammers to the dial-a-rickroll extension or whatever.  Not much help to the OP, thobut.

ian

Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #5 on: 03 December, 2019, 08:22:23 pm »
Indeed, I'm sure BT offer the service (probably charge for it, mind).

I turned off messages some time ago (both mothership and home). If it's important they'll either try again or send me a message. Life is too short to listen to long rambling messages that might anticipate a response.

Kim

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Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #6 on: 03 December, 2019, 09:16:04 pm »
Indeed, I'm sure BT offer the service (probably charge for it, mind).

It's in the telco's interest to provide voicemail, as it means they get to collect a termination charge they otherwise wouldn't for each unanswered call, and returned calls are potentially billable.  Obviously the only thing better than collecting termination charges is collecting termination charges *and* billing your customer for provision of a negligible-cost service, which is exactly the sort of thing our-favourite-telco excels at.

Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #7 on: 04 December, 2019, 07:06:46 am »
This is more or less my approach, because IP phones sound better than the landline, and because you can send the telespammers to the dial-a-rickroll extension or whatever.  Not much help to the OP, thobut.

No they don't. Well not for calls that end up on the phone network anyway. When the call goes onto the phone network it gets analogue transmitted in exactly the same way as a call from a standard analogue phone. That's equivalent quality to G711 digital encoding ie about 64Kbps. G711 is also what BT or any other carrier uses when a call goes over parts of its system digitally such as ISDN or E1.
Internal calling on VoIP phones (or any other IP to IP voice call) can be a lot better than analogue given bandwidth and lack of jitter and delay as a lot of them can switch to using much higher quality codecs wich will either use a higher bit rate or better compression to get a higher definition sound.
Any perceived better call quality from a VoIP phone to a landline destination will be due to the VoIP phone having a better microphone or speaker than your average cheapo analogue phone.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #8 on: 04 December, 2019, 10:10:19 am »
Having had a donkeys' year old ~£30 BT single handset 'Studio Plus' for well 'donks/yonks' - it's seen way better days with sticky buttons to say the least.

I tried a brand ne new Panansonic thing the other day - it was just as disappointing - light and plasticky, almoSt identical + the brand new sticky buttons and poor quality answer machine recordings.

Perhaps mobile phones' weight has given us a false sense of 'quality'?

Any recommendations for a simple one handset, with non distorted answer machine messages, deffo NO ORANGE numeral screens - improved quality after 10 years ago (which the new Panansonic particularly failed)?



Yes. We have a set of BT Dect phones, the base of the master containing an answerphone, and the phones themselves equipped with BT Call Guardian.

The BT 8600 Advanced is, AFAICS the current version.  The screens go dark after a few minutes, so even good for bedside table - although I have taped over the power light on the base for that one, but I hate lights in a dark bedroom, YMMV. 

The answerphone is digital, and excellent clarity.

The call guardian stops all (IME) nuisance calls. Unless a number is "white listed" when you enter it in the directory it gets put in an "announced call" queue, and you are then called and asked to accept, accept always, or block the number, before the caller is put through or disconnected.

It does have it's drawbacks of course.  Call-backs from doctors or hospitals can get put in the queue because the number calling is unlisted/unknown/blocked, but in practice they've always held on for the the minute it takes to get through.

I never found a way of getting overseas numbers white listed (although we have an earlier version of the phone) and that was slightly annoying with two kids overseas, but hey, they know to hang on and make an "announced" call  :).

Good range too - at least 30m from our lounge to the bottom of the garden, though the greenhouse does cut the signal at that range.
We are making a New World (Paul Nash, 1918)

Kim

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Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #9 on: 04 December, 2019, 12:15:28 pm »
This is more or less my approach, because IP phones sound better than the landline, and because you can send the telespammers to the dial-a-rickroll extension or whatever.  Not much help to the OP, thobut.

No they don't. Well not for calls that end up on the phone network anyway. When the call goes onto the phone network it gets analogue transmitted in exactly the same way as a call from a standard analogue phone. That's equivalent quality to G711 digital encoding ie about 64Kbps. G711 is also what BT or any other carrier uses when a call goes over parts of its system digitally such as ISDN or E1.
Internal calling on VoIP phones (or any other IP to IP voice call) can be a lot better than analogue given bandwidth and lack of jitter and delay as a lot of them can switch to using much higher quality codecs wich will either use a higher bit rate or better compression to get a higher definition sound.
Any perceived better call quality from a VoIP phone to a landline destination will be due to the VoIP phone having a better microphone or speaker than your average cheapo analogue phone.

No, it's due to the poor analogue performance of our specific phone line (note my use of the definite article).

High-end analogue phone[1] -> BT line -> whoever
and
High-end analogue phone -> FSX card -> asterisk -> FXO card -> BT line -> whoever
and
IP phone (g.711) -> asterisk -> FXO card -> BT line -> whoever

all sound markedly worse than:

High-end analogue phone -> FXS card -> asterisk (g.711) -> Sipgate -> whoever
and
IP phone (g.711) -> asterisk (g.711) -> Sipgate -> whoever


Obviously if you start using shitty codecs like GSM it sounds even worse, though in a "bits of speech are missing" way rather than a "signal to noise ratio" way, so it becomes academic if the person you're calling is in a bandwidth-restricted call centre, or on a mobile phone.  If they're on a analogue line using Tesco Value DECT handsets, you get a whole load of other problems.

Higher bandwidth codecs are lovely (Rick Astley never sounded so good), but the only people inclined to use them are too sensible to inflict phone calls on us in the first place.


[1] Geemarc Screenphone.  Doesn't matter if the amplifier's enabled or not.

Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #10 on: 05 December, 2019, 07:41:42 am »
Ah sorry Kim I see what you mean. Your doing VoiP to a breakout somewhere in the Internet thus bypassing all the analogue stuff in your house/street and maybe city.
That would make a difference.
I was assuming you had VoIP for you in house phones then a VoIP to analogue gateway connected to your landline.
My mistake.
I think you'll find it's a bit more complicated than that.

slope

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Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #11 on: 05 December, 2019, 06:36:47 pm »
Thanky all yee yet again for your informaritons and providing one with alternative thoughts +  realising  some bits of life aren't as simple as one WANTS

 :thumbsup: :)

Much appreiate ALL your thoughts and knowldedge

 -which all helps use my brain use litlle more than it thought possible  :)


fuaran

  • rothair gasta
Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #12 on: 06 December, 2019, 05:39:10 pm »
Worth a look at Gigaset DECT phones as well.
Seem pretty decent quality, sounds OK, good range etc.
There's a few models with an answering machine. Handy to have the answering machine built into the base station, instead of needing to pick up the handset.

Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #13 on: 06 December, 2019, 06:33:19 pm »
Worth a look at Gigaset DECT phones as well.
Seem pretty decent quality, sounds OK, good range etc.
There's a few models with an answering machine. Handy to have the answering machine built into the base station, instead of needing to pick up the handset.
We've had these for a few years now, as we use a VoIP service for landline calls. They've been faultless until the last couple of months when they - a three together- don't seem to be charging correctly (despite replacing the batteries). I will be replacing them with another set of Gigaset phones in the new year.
Too many angry people - breathe & relax.

hellymedic

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Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #14 on: 06 December, 2019, 07:52:22 pm »
i have Gigaset phones, bought from Ligo, which seem to function OK. I don't use the answering machine.

The batteries no longer seem to hold their charge as well as they did and will be repalced when I get the tuits. They're standard AA cells. Previous set used AAAs.

hellymedic

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Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #15 on: 29 December, 2019, 12:09:39 am »
I see you don't like the Siemens Gigaset you bought, which is similar to ours.
I was late to this thread as I wasn't that enamoured with my phone but accepted them as OK.

Might I be so rude as to ask what you dislike?

For myself, I'd probably prefer a hard-wired handset much of the time...

slope

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Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #16 on: 29 December, 2019, 10:17:06 am »
No rudity detected or felt hellymedic :)

The Gigaset arrived at Snowdon Towers during its flakey habitant's irregular and brief spells of ill humour - probably highly relevant - for starters. So I couldn't make sense of the Instructions (nothing new or notable there) but after some time working it out and a few days of bungling use it was most apparent the apparatus and I weren't to be the best of house mates. I wasn't at all enamoured by the cocky upright angle of the handset in its base, one much preferred the laid back position of its predecessor, an ancient BT Studio Plus. The audio quality appeared no better than the aging BT's, either in use or on the answer machine recordings. Oh and, I didn't like the feel and confusion of the navigation buttons neither. So it's just another pitiable (but so often necessary) personal experience I'd like to condemn to history and move on from ASAP :thumbsup:

Heigh ho! Learning. learning all the time? :)

ps it's still better to start from others' recommendations than don the blindfold of ignorance and dive in alone :thumbsup: And I am a flake ::-)

hellymedic

  • Just do it!
Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #17 on: 29 December, 2019, 12:41:58 pm »
As posted previously, we don't use the answering machine. We have a dual handset on ours.

One handset is always on charge in the lounge, the other stays free on its back in the kitchen, next to my laptop, usually for around three days between swapping for charging.

I would not tolerate a charging station and upright phone in the limited space of the kitchen either!

At least I can shift the handset off the dining area at mealtimes!

We have an unwritten 'no gadgets at mealtimes' rule.

fuaran

  • rothair gasta
Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #18 on: 29 December, 2019, 01:09:23 pm »
Sound quality is probably mostly due to the phone line. So I wouldn't expect much improvement from a newer/better phone.
Worth checking the wiring in your house. ie try plugging the phone directly into the master socket, without any extension. Or try a new microfilter (if you have an old style master socket, without 2 sockets).

Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #19 on: 07 January, 2020, 03:28:47 pm »
Been there done that, the same as you ... after my old BT DECT died, the new BT DECT was found to be horrible, tried the Siemens Gigaset, was ok but couldn't relate to the interface (and the quality was nowhere near claimed), moved onto a Panasonic KX-TGJ323EB, which after a couple of years use I can say is pretty good. It's a 'premium' model and doesn't feel horrible in the hand. The flush buttons all have a nice clicky feel. Full colour screen. Inputting names into the directory is tedious but only has to be done once (and syncs across multiple phones). Sound is good, ringer is loud, with some decent tunes. Best bit of all is the nuisance call block - just save the number to CallBlock and you never hear it ring again - the phone silently disconnects the caller if they try again. I don't like the BT Guardian as I work from home and don't want clients to jump through that hoop, and this is a much better solution. Only problem is it only holds 100 nuisance numbers! A Which Best Buy in 2018, a single handset answerphone is £65 on Amazon.

slope

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Re: Landline telephones with answer machine recomendations please?
« Reply #20 on: 07 January, 2020, 04:08:56 pm »
Thanks Horizon  :)

I'm not alone

Been there done that, the same as you ... tried the Siemens Gigaset, was ok but couldn't relate to the interface (and the quality was nowhere near claimed)