OBi202 VoIP Phone Adapter with Router

OBi202 VoIP Phone Adapter with Router, 2-Phone Ports, T.38 Fax - Supports: Google Voice & SIP
  • Works with Google Voice for FREE calls to the USA and Canada - Great international rates too!
  • Works with Up to Four (4) VoIP Services: Google Voice and Other VoIP Service Support (SIP).
  • Collaborative features which allow its phone ports to work together as a mini-phone system.
  • High Quality Voice over IP Technology
  • Built-In Router with QoS for VoIP Traffic Prioritization,only the OBiWiFi Wireless Adapter may be used with the OBi202

I had an OBi110 and soon after buying that I heard that OBi202 is going to be released, so I passed on the OBi110 to a friend.

This does the job as beautifully as OBI110 did, with great feature of two lines on one little amazing gizmo that OBi202 is. Everything was setup within 5 minutes and it's been great for the short 2 weeks I have had it.

Only small hitch I have had is that it produces this little electronic noise which I am told is from the conductors inside, perhaps if I move it away from me (it' at 2 feet right now) it will improve.. It's not too bad but it's there, comes and goes.

Have not tried fax yet, but love the clean little gizmo that this is.

Edit: Actually the noise is becoming annoying. I still haven't gotten rid of my VOIP.. Will call OBI tomorrow again, and might return if they say this is expected. OBI110 never had this

Edit2: I just hooked up 2nd GV line to Obi202. It did not take the 2nd line easily, i.e., although I added all of GV infor just like the 1st GV line Obi202 somehow did not connect 2nd GV account. I called the Support and the folks there were extremely friendly, called me back in 15 minutes and told me they fixed the setup at their end on my ObiTalk setup page. It's been working like a champ since then. I am changing my rating to a 4 Star now as the slight noise is still slightly unacceptable.

BTW, I also transferred my VOIP line to T-Mo and then to GV, I would say it was well worth the $20 + .99 cents I spent on the whole transfer process :)

Edit3: I am coming back to make it a 5 star review. Afetr moving my obi device behind my monitor somewhere with other 'stuff' like KVM, USB hub etc etc.. I do not hear the noise any more at all. Maybe it was the angle where the obi202 was placed before that caused the pitch the way it was coming. Wife agrees too that there is no noise anymore.

And both mine and my wife's GV numbers on this one little device are going great. There is a very ocacsional lag but I believe that is because our broadband (though 35mbps) gets overloaded every now and then with the Google TVs, and laptop, tablet and what not runing all the time :)

Edit4: I had to come back and change the subjct line, there is no more electronic noise with the new firmware.

Highly recommended !!

Buy OBi202 VoIP Phone Adapter with Router Now

I was looking at the previous version (Obi110) but decided to go with this newer one. But if you want to save money, go with Obi110. It should work as great.

It is the same thing except this one can handle up to 2 phones and it has a better design.

Okay, if you are familiar w/ Google Voice, it will take you less then 5 minutes to set it up.

Super easy and straight forward. I had it set up in 5 minutes and my home phone is working like a charm :)

Now I hooked 2 GoogleVoice numbers on this thing. You have the option to add up to 4 numbers for incoming call (with only one phone!!) and up to 2 numbers for the outgoing call (by using 2 phones, one phone for each outgoing number).

Now I save $40 every month with this baby.

The sound quality is great! Call in, call out w/ no problem. Of course, you need the working internet for this to work properly.

Couldn't be happier with this purchase. ^_^

Read Best Reviews of OBi202 VoIP Phone Adapter with Router Here

While there are several Voice-over-IP (VoIP) devices on the market, Obihai's offering stands out from the rest because of its nifty use of Google's GTalk protocol to make completely free outgoing calls. But rather than rehash all of the great qualities of this device, I thought to provide a little background on how exactly the Obi works since calling the mechanism as one using "Google Voice" doesn't describe the whole picture.

Google's telecommunication offerings actually consist of two products (1) Google Voice and (2) the calling feature in Gmail which doesn't really have a specifically branded name, but which I'll call "GTalk" as the calling feature is part of the GChat functionality in Gmail. Google Voice is actually a rebranding of GrandCentral's call-forwarding service that Google acquired some years ago with its acquisition of GrandCentral. It is not a Voice-over-IP protocol, but rather a call-forwarding service that allows you to use one "front-facing" phone number to which you can attach a limitless amount of other phone numbers (and services) which will ring whenever someone dials that "front-facing" number. GTalk, on the other hand, is a true VoIP protocol which Google obtained through its acquisition of Gizmo5, a small VoIP company. When you use GTalk to make calls, you are in fact making a telephone call through the internet.

The magic lies in the marriage of these two services and is what Obi takes advantage of. Google ties one's Google Voice number to the GTalk service in Gmail so that all outgoing calls carry that number and all incoming calls to that number are routed properly. The Obi essentially logs in to the gmail account you've associated with the device and monitors the Gtalk service for any incoming calls as well as places calls when you dial a number on your handset.

Therefore, my feeling is that even if Google Voice no longer stays free, I doubt there will be any effect on the Obi's utility, as the GTalk service within Gmail will almost certainly stay free for the near future it is in direct competition with Skype which is being baked in to Windows 8 and into Microsoft's Outlook.com e-mail platform.

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I like the idea and think it deserves all 5-stars. It is simple to get up and working and has a lot of advanced features for those who just want to tinker around. I am not using the router portion just as a 4/2 line service. When you go into expert mode it is truly expert related, I enjoy it but it could definitely cause problems for other users that get themselves lost. Can connect to google voice as a provider or use a SIP account with custom settings. Can also modify the dialplans and add trunks to another pbx or something.

Now just because it got all 5-start doesn't mean it perfect. It could use an interface update and the local configuration could match the online one even be the same, that threw me for a loop the first time. Although it seems nice I don't like the configure via obitalk's website at all. A couple time it didn't sync right away or didn't even sync at all. I have had a couple calls to myself where I have had some delayed audio, not sure if that is going to be an issue or not, so far not. Also a little clunky with how to switch between the four Service providers (having to do **2 for SP2) would have liked something easier but who knows might be able to change that with expert mode.

The unit easy to setup and connect to a phone, pbx, or whatever you want, change dialplans or add trunks. The box is pretty cool and I hope they get some competition to create more simple SOHO/home devices like this.

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I got some very good results with a test recently. I have had 2 phone lines in the house for many years now, and it appears that I'll soon be able to shut them both down for an inexpensive VoIP service.

I signed up for VoIP service from Callcentric.com (they offer free services if anyone wants to do some testing). I only signed up for 1 phone number from them.

Here's the cool part of the Callcentric SIP service: I was able to make 2 simultaneous outbound phone calls at the same time in one test, using my phones "line 1" and "line 2". Then I was able to receive 2 incoming phone calls in another test. In both cases I appeared to only have one phone number, but the OBi202 was smart enough to let the 2nd incoming call be answered on my home's "line 2".

Looks like I'll be able to shut down about $80/month on the existing 2 phone lines and replace it with something more like $18/month. If I was willing to live without e911, I could get a couple of free SIP accounts at Google Voice (it's free for this year 2012).

Now for the installation pointers:

The OBi202 appears to prefer to be connected directly to the Internet. It has a built-in firewall/router, and a LAN port so you could potentially replace an existing router with this OBi202.

I had a working OBi110 but couldn't get the OBi202 to work at first. The OBi202 would let me make a test call to **9 222222222, but I pretty much could not do anything else with it until I downloaded the OBiDeviceAdminGuide.pdf

I had the OBi202 behind my ActionTec router (from Verizon FiOS) and connected to my LAN by the OBi202's Internet port. So my network diagram is like Internet ActionTec router OBi202 Internet port. I have nothing on the OBi202 LAN port.

From the admin guide I learned that I needed to use my phone to give the commands ***0, 30 to enable Web management access from the WAN port. There are many more keys that are used to finish the command, so the ***0, 30 is just the start. Then I was able to run the configuration wizards and it worked.

I had also changed my ActionTec firewall rules to enable SIP traffic in both directions. The specific ports are listed in the Obihai FAQs.

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