I've had the Obi200 for years and love it. But I use mine with Callcentric and for $1.95/mo I get caller ID with name, Google Voice voicemail and 911 service. I like having a phone with 911 hanging on the wall in the kitchen. DETAILS: I ported my home phone number to Google Voice. When someone dials that number, GV forwards to my Callcentric number. Callcentric rings the Obi. No voicemail on the Callcentric, so after some rings GV picks up and takes the voicemail and emails the transcription. Outbound calls come from my Callcentric number, but I had them change the outbound caller-ID so that they appear to be coming from my home phone number. It all works great!
My older Obi110's also have a POTS line on them, so you can bridge between the VoIP or Obihai number and the POTS line. So for example I have one here in Canada and one at my parents house in New Zealand. So if I call their Obi from my Obi I can take control of it and then call out via their POTS line - essentially I can make a local to them call from here. Obviously there is a trust setup between the 2 devices. However with long distance pricing being so low these days it's not something I use much now.
Jitter can happen regardless of lag/ms delay. When ur packets hit Wan there is no gaurentee packet 1 2 and 3 take the same route. Therefore there is no gaurentee they arrive in that order at the other end. Jitter is by definition out of order reception of packets. In a game it looks like an opponent jumping around instead of moving fluidly. In an audio codec it's just garbage, or if the codec can identify order its delay while sound is reassembled
Great video as usual Willie. I have a old landline number that I ported over to Google Voice exactly how you described over 4 years ago. Have considered the Obi200 for a few years now, but really don't use the Google Voice number anymore, it's just there, lol. However, I didn't realize it could be used with PBX systems. I may have to pick one up and attempt to marry it with FreePBX. Thanks.
You mentioned jitter issues occurring at 150ms network latency. Do you have advice on how to reduce network latency for people in remote (rural) locations? I'm looking forward to learning more about the Grandstream UCM6202.
is there more to porting a current land line fax number to the obihai fax than 1) get a cell phone and port the fax number to it. 2) establish google voice and port cell phone over to the google voice 3) disconnect cell phone. Is cell phone only a middle point and not needed once ported over? Rarely use fax but must maintain the service and number.
Did you ever do a follow up video to this one where you provide more information about configuring Google Voice with an Obi200 and a Grandstream UCM (as you mentioned at 18:45)? I am trying to do that myself currently, but I am not having much luck finding information on the procedure. I have an Obi200, a UCM6301 and a couple of GXV3240 phones. My goal is to have an internal VOIP phone system using the Grandstream equipment with external calls going out/in via the Obi200. I know that using the Obi200 as a SIP trunk is no longer supported as it used to be on GV. However, is that somehow an option using some additional Obi/GV/UCM configuration in addition to what you cover in this video? Or possibly by using the the FXO port on the UCM to use the Obi200 as an analog trunk? I am very new to VOIP, so I'd apprecaite any advice you might have to point me in the right direction.
Hi Willie, Thank you so much for great video. It is awesome!!! Do you have video on how to use obihai google voice as a inbound and outbound trunk for Grandstream?? Thank you
Great Video's! I have learned so much from them. I'm revisiting this video; but have a question of understanding. With the OHi200 or OBi202; once i set it up and have a google voice number/s with it. i can then plug the analog line out of the OBi into a Grandstream UCM6202/04 FXO port and get a "CO" line into the 6202/04? Many thanks in advance.
Would you please make the video you mentioned you would, involving setting up the Google Voice account, and using it with your OBiHAI? The OBi instructions on how to do this are from 2007, very dated. They ask you to use Google Chat, which has been terminated by Google, replaced by Hangouts. OBiHAI Tech support is effectively worthless, short email answers that don't resolve problems, then no answering of emails at all. OBi seems to rely heavily on their Forum for assistance, which is like the helpless helping the helpless. A person such as you Willie, could probably get this to work with Google Voice, but that is because of your VOIP knowledge, it wouldn't be from OBIHAI publications, especially as it relates to Google Chat not appearing in Google Voice as it used to be in 2007 when the instructions were originally created. My phone, for example, has a dial tone, allowing outgoing calls. But, I can not receive any incoming calls. When I pick up my phone, it stops ringing, but it is not connecting, and the phone calling in continues to here my answered phone ringing, as if it were not picked up. Very frustrating.
Hey Willie, Can I set this up as an extension on a UCM where when the google voice number is called it's routed to the UCM and the IVR picks up and the prompts are played??
Just a word of warning, Obihai was bought out a few months ago by Polycom. And now Polycom has been bought by Plantronics. So nobody knows what the future product plans are. I do own and use a Obi200 for VOIP only as GV is not available where I live. And now Obihai have stopped selling their products here too. So the future of Obihai isn't certain for me at least. The Obi200 has been released for 6 years now so you wonder how much more life it has. The upside is that it is still having releases for bugs in the software.
Are you getting the voicemails left on the google voice coming to your landline? I heard this OBI box will not port the voice mails to the landline number. Is that true?
Stting is easy. I used Obihai202 with Google Voice. I have no problem getting google voice to work on my cordless phone. But the cordless phone cannot store google voice messages. Anyone know how to do it?
Jay, just an FYI, there is a Google Voice module for FreePBX. I downloaded and installed it but didn't have much success getting it to work. That was a year ago and FreePBX 13. A lot can change in a year. Haven't tried it since.
It works fine but you need to relax the account security setting since by default it don't support google Oauth2. Supposedly newer versions you can run some script to recompile with OAuth 2 support.
I have comcast business with 5 analog phone lines coming from a comcast phone modem which comes off of comcast cable. And I would like to know how can I convert all of the phone numbers through comcast to sip to work with the Grandstream rack-mount server. Since the Grandstream only supports 2 FXS ports. How can I do such a thing?
OK, now I am confused as hell, just WHAT 'number' is this device using? is it an extension ONLY on your internal network OR is it the 510 number !! using direct dial ?
Hmm, the confusion is that you indicated that you were explaining VoIP, but really is is just how to get an inexpensive 'option' on your existing 'network' or am I dreaming?
help i just got this hooked it up and used google voice and it works no problem for regular home phone.... however i want to use it to send and receive faxes from my all in one hp printer copier scanner fax... it sends out no problem but does not recieve it will ring and answer but once it pick up it just says connecting then says"no fax to receive" any help would be appricated
Willie Howe I am running a home office business and would like to setup an ip phone. Currently I have a copper line from my cable modem, in addition I am familiar and have a google voice number. Is there anyway to use my existing copper phone line for the backend calls. I know setting up an ip phone would require a pbx, I just need some solutions on getting to the outside lines.
I had GV working for several years, but Google removed XMPP around June 2018 which made my FreePBX fail. However, I understand that it will still work with the ObiHai using analog. What I don't know is whether the ObiHai can be used as a bridge. Any thoughts?
Willie Howe I guess I didn’t form my question correctly. I know it can be used as an ATA, but GV has additional channels and wondering if that can be pumped into a PBX as SIP that is deliverable to a VOIP phone. I am going to play around with it a bit.
Why are you all of a sudden trying to push Grandstream products?? Grandstream is complete trash, especially in the VoIP market. I have never met a customer that has been happy with a Grandstream VoIP solution. Aside from their hardware being junk they have, without question, the worst customer support in the tech industry.
Frankly, they must be filling a place in the market. I think I can justify a $25-100 phone to my boss with a $200-300 “brain” vs multiple, for example, Cisco phones & system which are much more.
I guess that's relative. I use to work for a company that would handle IT for small businesses and one of our areas of expertise was VoIP system. We were getting calls from places that had someone come and sell them on a cheaper Grandstream system. Their systems were constantly malfunctioning and they were calling their previous phone techs 3-4 times a week to resolve issues. When they took into account how much time they were spending on this as well as the loss of business from the phones not always working they decided to call us and we put together a solution that included breaking the entire job into a 24-month payment plan and were able to further reduce their phone bill to help offset the new cost a bit. You have to ask yourself, is the juice worth the squeeze?
Willie, I heard Obihai and Google will drop their connection on Dec.31.2023 and that's the end of Obihai users?
Hardware already discontinued?
I've had the Obi200 for years and love it. But I use mine with Callcentric and for $1.95/mo I get caller ID with name, Google Voice voicemail and 911 service. I like having a phone with 911 hanging on the wall in the kitchen. DETAILS: I ported my home phone number to Google Voice. When someone dials that number, GV forwards to my Callcentric number. Callcentric rings the Obi. No voicemail on the Callcentric, so after some rings GV picks up and takes the voicemail and emails the transcription. Outbound calls come from my Callcentric number, but I had them change the outbound caller-ID so that they appear to be coming from my home phone number. It all works great!
My older Obi110's also have a POTS line on them, so you can bridge between the VoIP or Obihai number and the POTS line. So for example I have one here in Canada and one at my parents house in New Zealand. So if I call their Obi from my Obi I can take control of it and then call out via their POTS line - essentially I can make a local to them call from here. Obviously there is a trust setup between the 2 devices. However with long distance pricing being so low these days it's not something I use much now.
Jitter can happen regardless of lag/ms delay. When ur packets hit Wan there is no gaurentee packet 1 2 and 3 take the same route. Therefore there is no gaurentee they arrive in that order at the other end. Jitter is by definition out of order reception of packets. In a game it looks like an opponent jumping around instead of moving fluidly. In an audio codec it's just garbage, or if the codec can identify order its delay while sound is reassembled
Great video as usual Willie. I have a old landline number that I ported over to Google Voice exactly how you described over 4 years ago. Have considered the Obi200 for a few years now, but really don't use the Google Voice number anymore, it's just there, lol. However, I didn't realize it could be used with PBX systems. I may have to pick one up and attempt to marry it with FreePBX. Thanks.
You mentioned jitter issues occurring at 150ms network latency. Do you have advice on how to reduce network latency for people in remote (rural) locations? I'm looking forward to learning more about the Grandstream UCM6202.
is there more to porting a current land line fax number to the obihai fax than 1) get a cell phone and port the fax number to it. 2) establish google voice and port cell phone over to the google voice 3) disconnect cell phone. Is cell phone only a middle point and not needed once ported over? Rarely use fax but must maintain the service and number.
Did you ever do a follow up video to this one where you provide more information about configuring Google Voice with an Obi200 and a Grandstream UCM (as you mentioned at 18:45)? I am trying to do that myself currently, but I am not having much luck finding information on the procedure. I have an Obi200, a UCM6301 and a couple of GXV3240 phones. My goal is to have an internal VOIP phone system using the Grandstream equipment with external calls going out/in via the Obi200. I know that using the Obi200 as a SIP trunk is no longer supported as it used to be on GV. However, is that somehow an option using some additional Obi/GV/UCM configuration in addition to what you cover in this video? Or possibly by using the the FXO port on the UCM to use the Obi200 as an analog trunk? I am very new to VOIP, so I'd apprecaite any advice you might have to point me in the right direction.
Hi Willie, Thank you so much for great video. It is awesome!!! Do you have video on how to use obihai google voice as a inbound and outbound trunk for Grandstream?? Thank you
What would be the use case for that?
Did you (or were you able to) connect your Cisco IP Phone to the UCM6204? If so which model Cisco IP Phone do you have and how?
Google Voice is not available in Canada any alternatives?
Great Video's! I have learned so much from them. I'm revisiting this video; but have a question of understanding. With the OHi200 or OBi202; once i set it up and have a google voice number/s with it. i can then plug the analog line out of the OBi into a Grandstream UCM6202/04 FXO port and get a "CO" line into the 6202/04? Many thanks in advance.
how to setup grandstream ucm6204 to polycom obi200
Would you please make the video you mentioned you would, involving setting up the Google Voice account, and using it with your OBiHAI? The OBi instructions on how to do this are from 2007, very dated. They ask you to use Google Chat, which has been terminated by Google, replaced by Hangouts. OBiHAI Tech support is effectively worthless, short email answers that don't resolve problems, then no answering of emails at all. OBi seems to rely heavily on their Forum for assistance, which is like the helpless helping the helpless.
A person such as you Willie, could probably get this to work with Google Voice, but that is because of your VOIP knowledge, it wouldn't be from OBIHAI publications, especially as it relates to Google Chat not appearing in Google Voice as it used to be in 2007 when the instructions were originally created.
My phone, for example, has a dial tone, allowing outgoing calls. But, I can not receive any incoming calls. When I pick up my phone, it stops ringing, but it is not connecting, and the phone calling in continues to here my answered phone ringing, as if it were not picked up.
Very frustrating.
If this is setup on the US on GV, can it then be used on a VPN in another country for calls in and out of the US?
Can you make a video about openvpn on the Grandstream phone, tried to set it up on PIA, but was unable to make it work.
Hey Willie, Can I set this up as an extension on a UCM where when the google voice number is called it's routed to the UCM and the IVR picks up and the prompts are played??
Just a word of warning, Obihai was bought out a few months ago by Polycom. And now Polycom has been bought by Plantronics. So nobody knows what the future product plans are.
I do own and use a Obi200 for VOIP only as GV is not available where I live. And now Obihai have stopped selling their products here too. So the future of Obihai isn't certain for me at least.
The Obi200 has been released for 6 years now so you wonder how much more life it has. The upside is that it is still having releases for bugs in the software.
Ops must have skipped that bit. Sorry.
I know this is an older video but can you update on if this is still viable? Thanks!
Are you getting the voicemails left on the google voice coming to your landline? I heard this OBI box will not port the voice mails to the landline number. Is that true?
Can you use any kind of house phone into it ?
Can that system work in Jamaica?
Very nice informative video.
Stting is easy. I used Obihai202 with Google Voice. I have no problem getting google voice to work on my cordless phone. But the cordless phone cannot store google voice messages. Anyone know how to do it?
I really wish there was PBX software that was compatible with Google Voice. It seems only hardware devices support it.
Jay, just an FYI, there is a Google Voice module for FreePBX. I downloaded and installed it but didn't have much success getting it to work. That was a year ago and FreePBX 13. A lot can change in a year. Haven't tried it since.
It works fine but you need to relax the account security setting since by default it don't support google Oauth2. Supposedly newer versions you can run some script to recompile with OAuth 2 support.
I have comcast business with 5 analog phone lines coming from a comcast phone modem which comes off of comcast cable. And I would like to know how can I convert all of the phone numbers through comcast to sip to work with the Grandstream rack-mount server. Since the Grandstream only supports 2 FXS ports. How can I do such a thing?
Willie Howe sounds good 👌
Is there a system for the UK?
OK, now I am confused as hell, just WHAT 'number' is this device using? is it an extension ONLY on your internal network OR is it the 510 number !! using direct dial ?
Hmm, the confusion is that you indicated that you were explaining VoIP, but really is is just how to get an inexpensive 'option' on your existing 'network' or am I dreaming?
Nice tool, thank willie, willie please recommend me some book to learn freepbx
help i just got this hooked it up and used google voice and it works no problem for regular home phone.... however i want to use it to send and receive faxes from my all in one hp printer copier scanner fax... it sends out no problem but does not recieve it will ring and answer but once it pick up it just says connecting then says"no fax to receive" any help would be appricated
did you ever figure out your fax problem?
@@wl6279 had to stop google voice from going to voicemail as well as only ring on the oblonk
Willie Howe I am running a home office business and would like to setup an ip phone. Currently I have a copper line from my cable modem, in addition I am familiar and have a google voice number. Is there anyway to use my existing copper phone line for the backend calls. I know setting up an ip phone would require a pbx, I just need some solutions on getting to the outside lines.
There is also the Obi212 which is a Obi200 with a PSTN line in/out so you can use that to route calls via landline or GV or VOIP
I had GV working for several years, but Google removed XMPP around June 2018 which made my FreePBX fail. However, I understand that it will still work with the ObiHai using analog. What I don't know is whether the ObiHai can be used as a bridge. Any thoughts?
Willie Howe I guess I didn’t form my question correctly. I know it can be used as an ATA, but GV has additional channels and wondering if that can be pumped into a PBX as SIP that is deliverable to a VOIP phone. I am going to play around with it a bit.
Use the alternative firmware on your Obihai 200 and SETUP GV on the Obihai portal.
Now Willie you need to get to work on your cable management
Why are you all of a sudden trying to push Grandstream products?? Grandstream is complete trash, especially in the VoIP market. I have never met a customer that has been happy with a Grandstream VoIP solution. Aside from their hardware being junk they have, without question, the worst customer support in the tech industry.
Frankly, they must be filling a place in the market. I think I can justify a $25-100 phone to my boss with a $200-300 “brain” vs multiple, for example, Cisco phones & system which are much more.
I guess that's relative. I use to work for a company that would handle IT for small businesses and one of our areas of expertise was VoIP system. We were getting calls from places that had someone come and sell them on a cheaper Grandstream system. Their systems were constantly malfunctioning and they were calling their previous phone techs 3-4 times a week to resolve issues. When they took into account how much time they were spending on this as well as the loss of business from the phones not always working they decided to call us and we put together a solution that included breaking the entire job into a 24-month payment plan and were able to further reduce their phone bill to help offset the new cost a bit. You have to ask yourself, is the juice worth the squeeze?