I am a life coach and have just bought a Philips 841 phone to enable me to receive Skype and landline calls on the same handest without my computer being on. Most of my clients are UK based so they call me via my Skype-in number, and the call gets charged to me via my Skype credit. The telephone is wireless and works by plugging into my wifi ADSL router. I have spent the last two months in hours of conversation with Philips technical help as it just cannot connect to the network, and therefore can only receive landline calls. I’ve tried it on a friend’s router in Spain and it doesn’t work on theirs either.
The telephone cost 200 Euros and if it worked would be fabulous, so any help or advice would be gratefully received. I purchased it via Skype website and it was sent via a distributor in Barcelona (I live in Catalonia). Now Philips have said it could be the phone and I have to find a shop that sells Philips VoIP telephones as they have an agreement with Philips and can order me a new one to try that. I spent Saturday going around three shops in Manresa and no-one sells them. Tomorrow I’m going to Barcelona. I suspect the phone is incompatible with wifi routers - surely I should just be able to plug in and use….especially for 200 Euros! The majority of people in Spain use telefonica for their ADSL so they should really put something on their box to say it is complex or not compatible with the firewall in their router.
If I find a shop in Bcn that can take my Philips 841 off my hands, re-order and get me another which I have to travel 2 hours to collect and find that one doesn’t work either it’s not ideal. I did see a Seiman’s VoIP phone that looked good - has anyone had experience?
I’m wondering if Philips are selling these phones in Spain when they are not compatible with Telefonica’s wifi ADSL routers so I’m interested in knowing if anyone else has got this telephone and how they got round connection to network problems? Any advice or suggestions gratefully received.
OK. I doubt, but I could be wrong, that this is a problem with the actual ADSL service provided by Telef?nica.
I?m assuming that the problem is that the phone doesn?t connect to the wireless device. Do you know if the Telef?nica wireless access point has the wireless capability activated? Often, for security reasons, the device is provided with the wireless side turned off.
I should have said that ZyXel is not a Telef?nica brand, it?s actually a Taiwanese company which produces a lot of networking equipment. Therefore there?s a strong possibility that your problem may not be unknown to others.
Thanks for the post. My notebook and PC are both wireless and work with the wireless router (I have to put a key into each computer, which came with the router). Philips told me that, as the router has the telefonica logo on it, they were probably made by the Taiwanese brand especially for Telefonica. I read somewhere on this expat site that wireless routers and VoIP are difficult to work because of firewalls, so it’s possible that this is the case with mine? I still think that Philips should put a warning on their packaging with this phone though. Their technical people have been great but in the end not helpful in sending me to look for a store that sells Philips VoIP phone myself - not easy in Spain! I’ve just emailed Philips and told them I want my money back after two months and lots of business time trying very hard to make it work as it should. It’s a shame because, if it did work, it’d be a fantastic produt!
Have you tried Vonage’s system? I had it working with Telefonica’s ZyXel router, no problem as far as I can remember. You may have to deactivate all the security features (esp. firewall), then, once it’s working, try re-enabling them one by one till you find the source of the problem.
I’m pretty sure it’s just a firewall issue here though…
I’d suggest taking back the wireless router/modem. Exchange it for a super basic modem, then buy a hub and a wireless router separately. This is if the above fails.
The Vonage system does look interesting and I will look into it. Deactivating the security features sounds a bit complicated to me as I’m not really a techie. I might go into an informatics shop in the town I live and ask if they can help….Thanks for the suggestions.
Unfortunately it?s not that straightforward to reconfigure the ZyXel. There are two interfaces; a web-based interface and a command line. You need to look at the manual and decide which method you?d like to use. Obviously the web front-end is easier but this may not be activated by default. Take a look at section 30.3 of the user guide:
We have a Telefonica router supplied by them about 6 months ago the label underneath it says it an Xavi 7868r model made in China. Has anyone successfully connected a VOIP system so that you can have more than 1 telephone line working at a time ?? If so what is it, where did you get it and how much was it? Thanks.
I understand it is possible to effectively use the standard ADSL connection (1 line with 1 tel number) to via the internet and other hardware have say 1 voice call, 1 fax call plus data over internet simultaneously.
Yes Robi, your understanding is correct. The good news is that you can have a VOIP connection for both voice and data (fax). The bad news is that if you really want to put Fax data over an IP connection, you?re going to have to work at this and you?ll require additional hardware. Effectively connecting a Fax machine to use VOIP is what you?d need to do if you wanted to connect an analogue phone. A voice call is relatively easy. Some people on this forum have had Vonage (http://www.vonage.co.uk) working and I personally use Terraip (http://www.terrasip.com).
The first thing that you need to do is choose a service provider. Any reputable service provider will allow you to download their software, free of charge, and make calls to other subscribers ? also free of charge. This won?t cost you anything, just your time. It will allow you to become familiar with VOIP and then decide how you?d like to expand, based on your needs.
If you really want to do something more serious, I?m happy to help you.
At work I have CISCO (expensive) and Asterisk (free) solutions installed. I also use Asterisk at home with three IP telephones whilst maintaining my four analogue phones connected to the Telef?nica line.
I am also experiencing really bad problems trying to get the PHILIPS VOIP 841 to connect to internet. All has been connected according to simple instructions. My wireless router is a TELEFONICA ZyXEL P660HW-61 . When I log-in into my router I can see that there is an IP NUMBER and a MAC ADREESS assigned to the PHILIPS VOIP. I can also see that the DHCP funtion is ON in the router. However, when I look in the handset scree menu, I can see the DHCP funtion in the handset itself is NOT ACTIVATED. This was supposed to get activated automatically as far as I understand. I am losing my patience with this VOIP and I am ready to claim my money back. Has anybody found what the problem is ? Is it just a matter of this VOIP in particular not being compatible with this wireless router ZyXEL p660HW-61 ? I can see other people are experiencing simmilar problems. THANKS for any advise you can give me.
Just a quick reply, I don’t know this Philips phones, but I’ve setup many devices over DSL routers, both from telefonica as other operators. Normally you just connect and as router is setup with NAT and DHCP (Unless you change this default values), the phone or other devices get automatically assigned IP and outgoing/routeback to Internet over the DSL router. Those routers also doesn’t have firewall, only a few filters to disable some traffic, but by default they are disabled too.
Perhaps a few points to check (You’ll have to be a little bit tech): Check for firmware upgrades of the phone, check with an Access Point instead of the built in wifi of the router (I found my daughter NintendoDS didn’t connect to wifi of my router, i changed to a Linksys and it works great) and finally but not likely to be the problem is to change the wifi encryption method (Or try for a moment without encryption to see if it can be the problem).
