Linksys PAP2 SIP adapter with Asterisk

Posted by Scott Laird Mon, 20 Sep 2004 17:39:27 GMT

As I mentioned before, Linksys is now selling cheap SIP analog telephone adaptors using a design licensed from Sipura. There was a long-standing question about the Linksys PAP2: does it only work with Vonage, or will it work with any SIP provider?

Initial reports were spotty–some people claimed to have their PAP2 working with Asterisk, while others found their PAP2 automatically connecting to Vonage. According to a few posts on the asterisk-users mailing list, the answer is tied to the model number: if you get the PAP2, you might be stuck with Vonage. If you buy the PAP2-NA, then you’ll end up with a provider-agnostic device. They’re both around $50, although the -NA is currently harder to find.

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Netgear and Linksys enter the ring

Posted by Scott Laird Tue, 24 Aug 2004 14:07:33 GMT

I’ve been predicting this for months, and it looks like it’s finally happened: the commodity-networking companies are starting to do VoIP. Yesterday, both Netgear and Linksys announced deals with Vonage.

I haven’t seen any hardware specs from Netgear yet, but Linksys has two products; a wired router and a standalone FXS-to-SIP gateway. Apparently, the Linksys hardware uses Sipura’s technology, but sells for less then Sipura’s more-or-less equivalent hardware. At a list price of $59, Linksys’s PAP2 is the cheapest SIP adapter on the market. Heck, staples.com has it in stock for $49, and Vonage will rebate $40 of that if you sign up with them.

D-Link has a similar product on their website, but I haven’t heard much about it. Froogle claims that Boris is selling it for $25, which is a good example of why I don’t trust Froogle (congratulations on the wedding, Boris). I don’t actually know if D-Link is selling the DVG-1120 directly, but there’s at least one review online. D-Link also has a SIP phone on their website, but the Asterisk-users mailing list claims that it’s not available in the US yet.

So, all of the “name-brand” cheap home networking companies are now selling VoIP adapters. Presumably, we’ll see a wave of no-name SIP hardware hit in around 6 months, and the cost will drop to around $25. That, combined with a month’s free service, should make Vonage and their ilk grow like weeds without having to pay $400 per head to acquire customers.

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Wireless weirdness

Posted by Scott Laird Thu, 22 Jul 2004 16:20:47 GMT

Okay, this is just strange. As mentioned before, I have a Cisco 7940 IP Phone in my kitchen, currently connected to a Linksys WET11 wireless Ethernet bridge. I’ve been having problems lately with weird connection failures, which I assumed was caused by low signal strength.

That is, until I looked at my logs. Apparently the phone has left my network and migrated onto one of my neighbors’ networks, because the phone is now logging in from Comcast’s IP space. This is strange on several fronts–first, the WET11 is supposed to be hard-coded to use my SSID. Second, I’ve never seen any of my neighbors’ networks from my PowerBook, and I’ve looked around a few times, just to see if I could track down the source of my interference.

I’ll try moving everything to a different channel tonight and see if that helps. Failing that, I guess I’ll have to pull out my drill and start pulling Cat 5 through the basement this weekend.

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